


Purgative

by prestissimo



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Armand is his own warning, BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Bad Therapy, Drugged Sex, Drugging, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Fledglings, Forced Orgasm, Forced Prostitution, Forced Relationship, Gaslighting, Lima Syndrome, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Illness, Mind Rape, Multiple Personalities, Murder, Patient-Doctor Confidentiality, Psychological Torture, Sadism, Self-Harm, Stockholm Syndrome, Strait Jacket, Therapy, Torture, straight jacket, that's not how therapy works Nicki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 20:12:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5715598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prestissimo/pseuds/prestissimo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Armand changed you so much..."</p><p>Nicolas de Lenfent, having faked his death centuries ago, goes to David Talbot for psychological therapy. David gets much more than he bargained for as he must bear witness to Nicolas' trials in the Theatre des Vampires. Not for the faint of heart, but then, Armand never is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Long Prelude: Stumbling Into Armand

**Author's Note:**

> This was written nearly a decade ago. Unedited, unbeta'd, but it seems there's a sore lack of fic in this fandom and prevailing winds say it might be safe to come out now.
> 
> Feel free to skip the Prelude.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nicolas visits New Orleans and runs into Armand, who relapses into his coven master nights now that he has Nicolas all to himself again.

It was time to leave. Another few years and people would start to talk about how he never aged, and even in this day and age of Botox and plastic surgery there were limits to a body. Besides, it was a small affrontment to Nicki to be thought of as some receding fellow constantly going in for physical alterations. He took a breath, and locked the door to the empty gallery. Where would he go now?

/New Orleans./

Of course. The idea came to him so quickly he looked swiftly around, wondering if anybody was watching, and then said to the thin air, "I'm ignoring you. You're not there, you don't exist, and you're not coming back. I'm feeling just fine, and after two decades we've--I mean, I've proven that I don't need you at all. So go away."

He smiled to himself, nodded, and should have worried much more. Yet he hadn't been lonely, hadn't been sad, hadn't even had so much as pain. He had friends here, and he was loathe to leave them. And they spoke French and German, both which he knew, especially from his early lessons with Herr Mozart.

/Prove it by going back. Make our flat sane then./

"That was never the point! I like the flat the way it is," he said again, and realised he was talking to himself. "I'm so silly." Yes, that was it, belittle Nicolas, make him worthless, a nonentity, and everything would be all right. Things would be right again, he thought, leaving Switzerland at last.

Hours later, as he stared at the Departures in JFK in disbelief, New Orleans popped up as boarding. The other option was Baton Rouge, and he knew it must have been fate, insane homunculus or no. He had a mind to visit the voodoohienne anyway.

"Well, this begins tonight, because if anything I am not living in a madman's house," he said to the cat, relieved he was not talking to himself anymore, at least. She stared as he worked feverishly, tearing down every single curtain, plastering the doors in the ceiling and installing them where they ought to be.

/We thought it was a brilliant idea, don't you remember? You worked so hard on the curtains; do you think you can deny their allure?/

He took a car and raided the nearby home improvement stores. This was going to be his new project, yes. Refurbish the flat. The first thing he did was build a great pile in the courtyard.

/No! Can you really do this, Nicki? Destroy us? Destroy our things? Remember the pyre! Armand! The wailing, and our silent walk into the flames. Are you going to do this? I'm getting quite distraught now you know.../

"Good," Nicki said. "And yes."

Without even blinking he broke up The Chair and set it onto the pile along with other worthless things, the chains, the things he wasn't going to give a name, and lit the bonfire. Then he remembered to prevent his neighbours or the fire department from noticing.

By the end of the week the flat was unrecognizable from its previous furniture or wallpaper. Everything was still in rich colours, but white and cream had been allowed to enter the moulding and some of the damask wallpaper in the sitting room. It was a healthy mix of modern and old luxury, because if anything Nicki loved reference and the avant-garde. He put his feet up on the coffee table and nuzzled the cat's neck with a grin. This was great, an excellent idea. And now...

 

The walls were dark, and of course the statue trick didn't work on him. She wasn't here. He dipped his finger in the wax, and stopped suddenly when she said, "I told you to stop doing that, vampire."

It made him turn and look at her quizzically. She had never said that before, except when they'd first met. "If this is about her..."

"I knew it was going to happen. Now go away."

"You don't trust me? You always knew when I was sane, and called me the right names. Now that I've been well for so long, you turn me away? Is this more woman's work of yours, some secret private ritual I can't enter?" he smiled, amused. Then, with an even deeper smirk, he brought out a tin of her favourite tea, and lay a hand on her shoulder. "Is this what you were going to turn me out for?"

She snatched it and held it to her breast with a grin. "You always did make me feel like a young girl again. Sit down. Where have you been these last years? I been missin' my tea and havin' to get my daughter to get that bagged stuff from the store, and you know I never held with the bags."

"I know, Adele." It made him sad, suddenly, to see her like this. "You never used to even accept teabags." It struck him how old she was now. One of his oldest mortal friends. "Adele, what's wrong?" he asked, as she looked down at the tea.

"If it had been a bigger tin, I'd have more time. I gots to finish the tea. I'm dyin'," she said, and when he started to speak she silenced him with the power, and he didn't have the heart to take it off. "It's the cancer, and you know I don't want you to be doin' anyting about it. So you just go make my tea and tell me what's goin' on."

"Adele..." he knelt, and despite her rigid silence took her small hand into his.

"I know," she said, and smiled, the lines disappearing from her face for a moment. She looked as young as she did when Nicki first kissed her, and when Nicolas first embraced her lithe body, when Nicki and she toyed and flirted for a moment's time, though they both knew it couldn't, wouldn't, ever happen. "Now please, Nicki, mon cher, make some tea and tell me where you've been walkin'."

"Switzerland. I was...I expect you know what happened with her. I had reached the deepest of my ends in Paris when an old one took me, forced me to be stronger about...well, about Nicolas. It worked somehow, and for twenty years, away from anything else, I ran an art bar in St. Martins, for flashy skiers."

"She did what nobody has ever done, hm?" she said, as he set the kettle on. "That's a brave woman. Must have been real old."

"As hard as steel. I'm honestly still afraid of her," he told her, but thought again of not talking to Adele any longer. It made him ache inside, and his hands hurt for a moment. Eyes widening, he whirled back to look at her. "We've tried this before, Adele, it won't work! He can't be bound! He /is/ me!"

"Imma gonna die anyway, Nicki, and you can't, and you can't be having with this all the time!" she yelled, hands straining as blood appeared on them, black as her hair used to be. He grabbed her by the shoulders, and could feel a buzzing behind his ears.

"Nicolas is not going in you! He can't be removed, you know this! He won't die with you; it'll just be a part of the demon! He's just another me!"

"I know. I just had to try, just one last time," she said with a smile, and sagged in his arms, allowing him to embrace her and cradle her as he once did.

"C'mon. I'll take you home," he said, but couldn't shake the jarring in his heart from what she'd tried to do. And was Nicolas stirring because of it? There was only one way to find out. But first...he bent and kissed her, pouring his blood into her ravaged body. She jolted once, and felt the blood curing her from inside out, rooting out the cancer, making her whole and younger than she'd felt in a long time. Beaming, but still angry that he'd brought her back to her youthful beauty as of old when it had been her time for a long while, she pushed at him with all her willpower and made him let go.

"Did it work? Is there no more pain?" he asked desperately, grasping her again despite the blood on her hands.

"You did fine, Nicki, you did jest fine. Now take me home. I'm not about to abandon a place I'm still going to have to pay for for twenty more years," she said with a cocky grin. And that smile was thanks enough.

 

The following night, hands still aching, he made his way to the house he saw registered for Adele.

/So you're going to do this now? Then let us fix our hair.../

His hands shook as they went up to muss his hair, and he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk in shock at what he'd done. "Great. Now I choose to be possessed?" he muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets.

/Ah yes, maybe she can take me out, hmm? Payback, if you will./

"Try me." He cursed himself when he realized he was talking out loud again. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. He should get Louis. Yes, Louis would make everything better.

"Bon soir, Monsieur. Out for a midnight stroll?" He heard the voice and closed his eyes, imagining himself kicking at Nicolas. Why him? Why now?

/Yes, yes, this is what you were worried about, weren't you, when you refused to come back? That he would be around, making things complicated? Is it working?/

He turned around and did a mock-bow, bending one knee as he smirked and said, "Still using the old French?" but his smile disappeared when Armand's hands suddenly ran through Nicki's hair, neatening it once more.

"You've been away a while. Surely you don't need a reminder of what my old ways really are, Nicolas?" Armand asked wryly, one eyebrow raised, and Nicki flinched.

"Please...call me Nicki now," he said, and Armand peered at him more carefully. "Just Nicki."

/Now if that doesn't send up a red flag.../

"Shut up, shut up!" Nicki shouted at himself in the middle of the street, hands on his head.

"What's happened?" Armand asked, genuinely concerned as he tilted his head to the side, looking up at Nicki.

"Nothing, I'm just...I'm just looking for something to do," Nicki replied, turning away so Armand couldn't see his hands shaking.

/More like trying to rekindle some vestige of romance with the girl we shattered? Why don't we ask Armand to join in? He loves that sort of thing, look at what he did to Daniel. Why hang around here? Go with him./

"Because I don't have anything else to do?" Nicki asked Nicolas.

"Then come with me," Armand said, entreatingly for once. "You look miserable." He took Nicolas by the arm and led him, unresisting, to a neatly kept old Victorian, into the brightly lit kitchen. If he noticed the shaking, he made no comment, and lifted the larger man onto the kitchen table.

"What are you doing?" asked Nicki, as Armand unbuttoned his shirt, giving him light touches here and there, as if to remind himself of what Nicki felt like.

"I was just thinking, that we are old friends. Few understand each other as we do, Nicolas. I'm glad to see you," said Armand, and Nicki trembled as he kissed the hollow at the base of his neck. /You can't resist him alone. You don't have the wild anger that's needed to be strong enough to stop him. You know what he's going to do; he did it that first time when we went to hunt, when he watched us collapse in joy at the blood. He likes it best when we're weak./

"You like it best when I'm weak, don't you?" asked Nicki, closing his eyes as Armand's lips traveled to his eyebrows and his eyelashes, soft and satiny. The other vampire seemed not to notice his downturned lips, his pained expression.

"I like it best when you are full of life, when you hate me and love me and rage against me," murmured Armand with a smile, and suddenly Nicki's wrists were pinned to the table in a gross parody of what happened centuries before. Armand's smile widened at Nicki's stifled whimper.

"We've been over this," Nicki said. /So many times. And it's us, it's both of us, enjoying what happens after, loving the crunch of his bone and his skull when we fight./

"You love it yourself," replied Armand, before sinking his fangs into the skin of Nicki's neck and making him cry out. The tugging on his heart was familiar, but it had been so long and Armand was draining him so hard that he groaned, dizziness overtaking him, his grip weakening against shoulders that would not be pushed away.

He lay back against the bed now, so swiftly had Armand moved, and through the haze of the feeding he was barely aware of the hands and the coldness, so that the shove of Armand inside him came as such a shock that he cried out in pain and confusion, eyes widening at Armand's chuckle. The hand on him changed it into a groan, and Armand chuckled again. It was such a glad sound, knowing and pleased, but Nicki cried out again with the next thrust, so hard and unforgiving. /You've got to love the pain, the burn! Feel it, Nicki!/

"You love pretending, do you, Nicolas?" Armand asked, breath a little hurried now.

"Please," he whispered, the thrusts distorting his throat. He felt very ugly. No. No more. /More. Yes. Say it. Say it!/ "Yes!" /Again./ "Again!" And who was he to lie, when he enjoyed it, somewhere inside himself? Nicolas was always more in love with Armand than Nicki ever could have been, and this embrace he welcomed so much that the strength of feeling confused Nicki, made him wonder if they both loved it, Armand alive and warm against him with his own blood, making love to him, really truly caring about him for why else with the hand coaxing pleasured, involuntary cries from him with every thrust? Exactly what Nicolas always wanted.

"Mon cher," moaned Armand, echoing the words they used centuries ago in one of Nicolas' more lucid moments at the Theatre. Some point inside Nicolas erupted at this, and the motion that came afterwards carried him through so that the vampire beneath Armand cried as one being, hands weakly clutching as he burst, Armand following soon afterwards.

Kisses covered his face as he recovered, and Nicki found himself returning them, nipping at his cheeks a little, forgetting it was something Nicolas used to do, since for this moment they were joined in purpose. In the warm, confused, ambiguous comfort that Armand's body brought him, he replied without thinking, "My Lord," and was surprised to feel his lover's hands harden and bring him round with a slap. /Ah, that's something I always said, do you remember, to hurt him, to slight him, when we were fighting?/

He opened his eyes and saw the pain etched into Armand's beautiful face, but also felt the anger pass through him, cold and exacting, and he was suddenly afraid. /She made a mistake, didn't she, in separating us? We don't know how to work together anymore, and you can't handle this without letting yourself go./ Armand was looking at him so coldly he almost couldn't bear it.

"Why say this at such a time?" Armand said, taking Nicki's white, bloodless cheek in his hand, his thumb pressing a little, almost painfully.

"Did you want to fight me? I thought we were over that. I thought we'd grown up," Nicki murmured, and the pressure told him it was not the right thing to say. /Have you really forgotten? Has she divided us so completely?/

"What's wrong with you?" Armand asked, truly troubled, straddling Nicki as he took hold of his wrists again. A current of fear and panic ripped through Nicki as he struggled for a moment and was stilled by Armand's look. "Lord, am I?" he asked, spitting the word out. "Master, am I? Still you chafe at me for no reason?" His gaze was terrifying and for a moment Nicki thought he was going to strike him again.

"Not me; I never meant--" Nicki said, and his expression went slack. /Aah, now you know, don't you? Why so surprised? Why would I help you get over this confusion? Why would I ever want to make sure you survived Armand's wrath?/ "I'm losing it, Armand. If you would just calm down and let me go, I can tell you what happened. But if you keep..." he closed his eyes, trying to stifle the tears and the panic and the fear not of Armand, but of himself. "Please let go of me." It came out as a hoarse whisper, and through Nicolas' laughter he heard Armand sigh wearily and release him.

He shivered now that Armand's body wasn't covering his anymore, and would have reached for the blanket if Armand had not said, "Talk." He swallowed and forced himself to look at him.

/And you'll tell him everything, will you? And he'll believe you?/

"I'm two people now," Nicki said, ignoring himself. "The...the normal me and the..." /The crazy one? The one that screams against Armand and makes love to Armand in a way only I know how that touches him exactly--/ "The other one you knew only afterwards. I had help forced on me by an old one. She...I don't know; she made me separate myself." The raised eyebrow from Armand was painful to see, even as he crossed his arms in an appraising fashion that always made him feel naked.

"Two people..." Armand muttered, frowning. He shook his head and almost smiled. /See, he knows it too, feels it, felt it when you just lay back and took it like the whore to authority you always were. He's thinking of why you felt different./ "So you're...what you call normal now? I never thought being normal would include being a complete idiot."

"Don't be petty," Nicki replied, anger flaring up. /I would have just clocked him, let him feel it./ He grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around himself, feeling foolish. He stood up, hoping to find his clothes and get out of this mess.

"Ah, so it definitely isn't you," Armand said with a smile, as if everything was a test. "By all means, stay. I know you were enjoying yourself. I liked the change of pace, myself, for it leaves me with fewer bruises, to start with. Although..." he added, looking at Nicki as if there was no blanket. "I confess to a little less excitement than usual, as sweet as you are with your cries of submission." He stood up unashamedly, and stroked the side of Nicki's cheek in a way that made him know there was no question of ownership.

"Oh I can give you some excitement," Nicki almost growled, turning his head away from him. "But I can't promise fewer bruises." /That's more like it. It's what we both want, so why not just give in? This is so much more confusing for him and us./ "I suffered fifteen years to get to this lucid of a state, and I won't have it disturbed like this."

Armand snorted. "If this is what you call lucid, my dear Nicolas, I would ask for a refund." In his glory he lay back on the bed, entirely comfortable. "Who's getting stronger, Nicolas? Who did this to you?"

"She's not one of ours, but she's old. She said she'd kill me if I let him back," Nicki said, finally worried. "I don't know...this is confusing me. I thought I'd come back and check in on people and then leave, get a new place."

"Yes, we've read of your exploits at St. Martin's. Lestat is very proud, or was when last we spoke," Armand replied wryly. "I said it wouldn't be long before we heard news of a new theatre popping up and random acts of arson following once Louis made it there."

"Was that supposed to be a joke?" Nicki asked, fists clenching. Armand was putting him on edge, and he almost longed for the warm comfort he'd bathed in earlier. /You're hungry, of course, and sometimes the blood solves everything./ "Where is Louis, anyway?"

"Probably setting fire to something," Armand murmured, then stretched on the sheets like a cat. It brought an almost-blush to Nicki's cheeks, and he turned away. He could hear Armand moving, getting up to come behind him, taking the blanket away and leaving him bare again. "You know, you usually fight back. You're usually so responsive before you let me have you, that I should have suspected at once." His hands ghosted along Nicki's sides, caressing his skin and making him shiver.

"Before I let you...?"

"Did you think me a monster, Nicolas?"

"Well, you do a very good job of making it seem that way," Nicki replied, closing his eyes at Armand's lips at his neck again. And then he was sinking onto the bed again, Armand pressing him down, draining him again. "Yes," he whispered, now of his own volition. So gentle... /He's doing it for you.../ Even Nicolas sounded surprised, moved perhaps. "Merci..." And suddenly there was another in his head, and through the pleasure and the utter completion Armand's sharp kiss offered, he could feel him walking through his thoughts, opening doors, looking for any evidence that Nicolas was there. /Well you got what you wanted./

The mental blow Nicolas dealt Armand sent Nicki reeling even more. He barely had sense of himself as Nicolas and Armand exchanged bites, kisses, scratches, and grapples as familiar as long-lost lovers. But when Nicolas decked him a second time and looked into Armand's metaphorical eyes with the unrestrained condensation of violent lust, Armand released Nicki as suddenly as he'd taken him.

They were both breathing hard and fast, even though they didn't need to, and Nicki nearly closed his eyes before Armand pulled him up roughly and slapped him until he was alert, even past the exhaustion and the drainings.

"See, it feels just like old times--"

"Shut up." Armand looked furious with himself. "I should have known. In your mind where you make the rules, he would have killed me when we were done. He has none of your restraint but you have none of his fire. So who does that make you?"

"I don't...I don't..." /Exactly. She took the crazy out but she also took what drove that crazy out. And now we find you needing me. Again. Now that he's around./ Nicolas' smirk was so palpable Nicki's expression must have reflected it too, because Armand took a step back and let go and Nicki fell back onto the bed, weak and tired.

"Get up," Armand said, slapping him again, and he was so tired, he just wanted to lie back, just wanted to sleep and cuddle and be warm. "Get up, I said." He raised his hand again but this time Nicki's arm came up, and his other hand punched Armand full in the face so that he landed on the floor.

He stood up, shaking himself a little, and when he smiled Armand frowned past the blood splattered on his face from his nose.

"That took a little longer than usual," said Nicolas, looking down at his lover. "You were going about it the wrong way, Armand." He hurled himself at Armand, who by now was ready.

"Is this Nicolas?" asked Armand, as he was pushed up against the wall by fifteen years of pent-up fury and frustration.

"You should have been nice!" snarled Nicolas, punching him into the wall. "You should have been patient!" He fanged and bit Armand hard, enough to take a few mouthfuls before he was thrown off and punched so hard his head snapped back.

"You little shit," muttered Armand, as he grabbed Nicolas by the hair and dragged him bodily into the kitchen.

"Language, Monsieur," Nicolas cackled, and threw Armand's legs out from under him. He sat on his chest and with his longer arms he got his hands around Armand's neck, pressing and pressing and pressing until Armand's fist connected with his ear and he reeled, still laughing, and was thrown to the floor. "Now you've made a mistake, my Lord, now you've let me out and I'm not going back! Not after last time!"

Armand flung open a drawer and pulled out a long meat knife, and Nicolas' simper faded.

"Do I have to do this again?" Armand asked, as Nicolas backed away on his elbows. "You remember this at least, don't you?" he said, dragging him up by his hair and slamming him down on the kitchen table. "It was to both of you, after all. You remember how I did it? Something like this..." He thrust a knee up between Nicolas' legs, keeping him pinioned with one hand on his wrists. "It's delicious to feel you struggle like this, Nicolas. It is not something your counterpart is likely to do, direct and reasonable as he is. You fight against the unavoidable, and I love it." He had the upper hand now, holding Nicolas down with superior age and strength, and there was nothing the furor and energy of a madman could do against something as brutal as Armand's years.

"If you think this'll get me to go back inside," Nicolas said, but the panic was clear in his eyes as he struggled again, pushing and scratching and trying to kick, but Armand held firm.

"Do you think I CARE?" Armand nearly screamed at him, and it shut Nicolas up at once. "I just need to control you. When I've done that all I need is your body and your fire and that look in your eyes that nearly offers me danger." He held the kitchen knife against Nicolas' wrists, and the vampire stilled, weeping angry, silent tears. "And I'll saw this time. It won't be quick." He began a slice, blood rimming up and spurting out of Nicolas' skin, and at once the tenseness in Nicolas' body relaxed. Armand released him, and he crumpled to the floor.

Armand gently picked Nicki up and healed the wound. "It's all right now. You know I would never do it to you again." He cradled him, and Nicki only gave a murmur as he was placed on the bed, Nicolas scared away for now.

 

He woke up snuggled in Armand's arms, and smiled sleepily. Last night had tired him out in ways he hadn't been able to guess, but the angelic smile on Armand's face was enough to make him return the kiss that followed.

"I'm still here," Nicki murmured, as if surprised. Armand yawned, pulling him closer.

"I guess you can't have everything," he replied, and got up. That was when Nicki noticed the straps on his wrists and ankles, holding him down onto the bed.

"Armand?" he asked, not quite awake, still much younger than Armand.

"I'm sure I'll be sorry to have to do this," Armand paused, "eventually. But for now, we need to figure some things out."

"What are you doing? He's not talking to me anymore. He's gone. You scared him away." Nicki was starting to wake up now, and tugged at the restraints.

"Yes, but for how long? You said you were fine for a while, but the moment you thought of leaving he came back, and taunted you the entire way until last night," Armand said, almost sounding reasonable with Nicki's belt in his hand. It swung precariously over Nicki's skin, the cold metal making him shiver every so often.

"So what, you're going to hit me until he comes out? Is that it?"

"Clearly some kind of trauma brings him out, but some other kind of trauma throws him back," Armand said, and brought the buckle down on Nicki's abdomen. Nicki howled with pain, tears blurring his vision as he looked up at Armand. "So let's see if we can find some middle ground, shall we?"

"Armand, don't do this," Nicki said, and cried out when Armand struck him again, even harder, again and again. He could see his skin growing red, even without having fed this night, and he tried to bury his face in the pillow so he wouldn't have to look at Armand's cold, methodical face.

"Well don't dawdle, Nicki," Armand was saying, past his cries. Smack. "You'd be useless without him in any kind of important situation." Smack. "Nicolas, shall we call him, did so enjoy this." Smack.

"Well I'm not him!" Nicki yelled, wishing for the Armand of when he had just awoken. "I'm not him and no amount of hitting me is going to bring him back! Think about it! You yourself said he was too violent, too dangerous to be brought back."

"I don't want him back," Armand whispered, immediately crouched over Nicki's prone figure. His fingers caressed the angry welts running all over Nicki's body, pressing here and there to elicit pain in just the right ways. "I want something better than this creature before me who tries to fight me with some kind of logic he thinks he threw away when he ran away from school." Smack. It came on the most sensitive part, something Nicki didn't think Armand could stoop to, but it made him fang at once.

It made him angry, as if this kind of damage was worse than the mental castration the old one had forced upon him. "What the FUCK!" he screamed at Armand, pain forgotten, tears forgotten, focused in his rage and hatred of what Armand was doing to him. His hand went up to stop the belt, and pulled a surprised vampire against his chest. He hissed at the touch of skin against his wounds, but used the binds to trap him.

"Nicolas?" Armand asked questioningly, perhaps with a touch of fear.

"No," Nicki growled, and sank his fangs into Armand's neck furiously.

He could feel Armand melt willingly into his arms, and as he drank lovingly from that fragile throat he could hear a sigh of content. He drew back gasping, having taken his fill, and looked at Armand.

The angel was lying on his chest, looking almost relieved as he playfully cut into Nicki's flesh with his fingernails and licked the beads of blood off before the wound healed.

"So all I have to do, to get you going the way I like, Nicki, is to tie you down and give you a spanking?" Armand asked playfully, and Nicki almost growled again before letting himself go with a twitch of his mind. He stood up, rubbing his wrists as Armand simply lay back and watched him, content and satisfied.

"I'm not staying; you brought me here and I had no other choice," he told Armand, pulling on his trousers. "And I'll thank you to leave the matter of Nicolas alone."

"And what will you do when he resurfaces?"

"If he resurfaces you mean."

"He will. You're incomplete without him. You're not weak, but you're not yourself either. You don't have each other's memories and instincts. The others will notice soon enough, and they'll all try to help," Armand said, raising his eyebrows. "Imagine what that could mean, coming from Marius, or just as bad, Louis."

"Look, it hasn't been a problem for a long time, so why don't we just deal with it when we come to it?" Nicki said, and stopped himself.

"One of you is making the other one do things, and I think I'm getting the gist of it," said Armand with a smile. "Are you sure you don't want to stay? I think I'm the only one he's afraid of."

"There's another one, but I'm not likely to see her soon," Nicki said, contemplating.

"So what's the problem?" The smile was charming, almost unnerving. He didn't think Armand had ever asked for anything so nicely before.

"Are you staying in New Orleans?" It wasn't that, though. Armand was bad for him. He brought out all the fiery, unstable parts of himself that had made his life so complicated. He wasn't even sure how long Nicolas would stay away, or if the force of Armand's gambit would bring him back even stronger. It seemed best to stay away...

"No. It would be good for you to move around, too. I was only stopping by myself."

"Then I will stay, but I won't come when you leave." This seemed to content Armand enough, and Nicki sagged with relief. "Well, I'd best be going." Armand was before him so quickly Nicki hadn't even blinked.

"Why? I thought you were staying. What business do you have?" He sounded almost pleading. Was he really that worried about Nicolas? He's worried about me, Nicki thought, not him.

"I was going to meet with...with Adele," Nicki said uncertainly. "I hope it's still a good idea. I need to apologize for some things."

"Will you come back here, in the morning?" He sounded almost desperate, and did not get out of the doorway until Nicki nodded. "Good. You know how to reach me."

"Yes, Mother," Nicki replied, rolling his eyes as he went out. His confidence faded with the cool night air, however, and he found himself with his hands in his pockets, uncertain once more. He knew where he stood, with Armand. He knew the terrain, more or less, and Armand understood him in some way that Lestat simply refused to see.

And somehow, he thought to himself, he's stabilized me for something that's going to be even harder. Yes? /Oue./ It sounded tired. He froze for a second, turning back, wishing and hoping that Armand had been standing so close he heard it in his head, but no such luck. It exhausted him, the thought that he would return so soon, so brashly. He'd have to have a word with Armand about these methods of violence, which he was sure just made it worse. You're not back, he thought, you can't be. You're too afraid.

 

 

"Come. Your presence is desired." Armand's voice broke into his thoughts. /What is it you want, my liege?/ A swift blow to his psyche knocked the breath out of him for a moment. He had forgotten Armand hated such titles, for whatever reason Nicolas had used in the past. Nicki scowled. /I've only just left./ "You can visit your mortal pet later." He grumbled and turned back, but as he approached the unassuming little door, he paused. There was a mortal in the house. He could smell him, hear his thoughts. But Armand never allowed mortals in his home, unless-- "You've been on the phone. You called Bateman, didn't you?"

"Ah, Bishop can be quite useful at times. Lestat never realises how well my long-term investments pay off," Armand said, greeting Nicki in the doorway and pulling him inside in a way that gave no doubt as to ownership. It made some part of Nicki rebel inside, but he was so afraid it would be Nicolas that he ignored it, quashed it down, let Armand hold him like a doll.

"You know Bateman?" Nicki asked incredulously instead.

"Bishop came under my tutelage sometime during the Civil War. I would say he's progressed remarkably since, though he failed to anticipate anything of this intensity would befall you. He did tell me what he would do with you when you were in Philadelphia. Did it work, Nicki?" Armand asked as he guided Nicki towards the room with the mortal.

"I don't know. I don't think so. I was a mess in Philadelphia, just a mess. One of those preludes to an extreme, you know, like in Prague. I know you heard about that. You listen to everything on the Continent," Nicki said, still pondering over Bishop and Armand's relationship. "Why didn't Bateman ever tell me?"

"Why would you need to know?"

"So all those times, when he made me sit for therapy sessions...did he tell you--"

"Bishop is a responsible doctor. While his methods are occasionally unconventional, he maintains his patient client confidentiality," Armand replied.

"Yes, but did he tell you? What I said?" What had it been? Nicolas must have made some concessions after the medication for Armand to consider doing this. Vampiric metabolism didn't process antipsychotics and mood stabilizers quite as well as that of humans, so the most obvious viable solution was to find a human carrier.

Nicki's victim was already drugged, and he could sense the slowness of the thoughts in his head. "You added a sedative?" Nicolas said in surprise.

"You forget my investigations with Daniel," Armand replied coolly, continuing to nudge Nicki towards the human. "Go on. Let us see."

/No. Don't do it. It won't work. It'll let me out and you'll see, you'll see how badly Armand will react to it. He hates being wrong and when I come out we'll just get beaten./ Nicki clenched his fists in anger, and it made Armand step back, wondering what was happening. "I thought you were hiding," Nicki muttered, though he knew better than to continue with Armand still there. Where had Nicolas gone? Two years of never hearing from him, one nudge by a voodoohienne, one knock-down fight with Armand, and suddenly Nicolas was brave and reckless enough to begin a running commentary on his life? /Our life. Remember? She made a mistake. We can see that just as easily. I can't stick around without you.../ Nicki wondered just how much they were keeping from each other in an increasingly cramped mind.

"Go on," Armand said, taking a seat with the air of a faintly interested spectator. He shooed Nicki onwards.

It didn't take long to get himself to trust in Armand, and when he sank his fangs in he could smell the difference in the blood, that metallic smell dulled and combined with something else. He shuddered as something went through him and it felt like cobwebs around his brain were being tossed aside. He dropped the mortal and slumped beside him, sluggish and unresponsive to Armand's suddenly frantic cries and slaps.

"Shit. I knew it would be too much," Armand was saying in his face as he tried slapping Nicki awake. "Stupid Bishop. Nicki, Nicki wake up. Nicki don't be stupid. Don't leave me here with you and a stupid mortal."

It was possibly the most he'd heard Armand say that was directed straight at him.

"I'm trying to wake up," Nicki said with perfect clarity, but his mind felt muzzy, trapped somewhere still. There was less interference, but something was blocking his thoughts, making him slow and confused. "It's not working. I feel strange."

"Ah but Nicolas?" Armand seemed indecisive for a split second, then dealt Nicki a blow across the face that snapped his head back and made him cry out in pain. Blood splattered on the opposite wall and Nicki held his broken nose. "Nicolas?"

"Dno!" Nicki cried, annoyed and confused and tired. "Tdop baking itd worse!"

"Nicki," Armand whispered, and gently took him in his arms. Nicki felt cradled, secure, safe. He never felt it before in Armand's arms of all places. "Nicki, you'll take this every night. Then you can stay here with me."

/No. No no no no no!/ Nicki nodded with a soft smile. /We're our own person, we can do what we want! We don't need to stay here. We promised Adele we'd see her, really see her. You were going to give us a chance!/ Nicki just nodded and stroked Armand's chin and lips. He felt like he was constantly pitching forward, only Armand was catching him, keeping him here.

"You can stay with me always now, Nicki," Armand murmured possessively, as Nicki smiled, finally feeling free to refuse Nicolas.

/Goddamn you!/ Nicki could almost hear the tears in Nicolas' voice, and some part of him made sure to forget to be moved, as he snuggled deep into Armand's embrace. /We're our own person. You can't have us again!/ Nicki smiled again, blank and blissful. /We're not his! We're not his and we have our own things to do. He can't do this to us again, not again, not after all we've been through to get this far!/ Nicki's eyes widened. What did Nicolas mean, again? "Armmn?" he murmured questioningly, and looked up at Armand.

"Oui? You should rest, you know. It was too much this time but tomorrow night we shall get it right." The vampire was smiling down at him with an entirely guileless expression, and Nicki wondered just what he was going on about. Armand wasn't tricking them for his own ends. He was helping, and what did Nicolas know?

/I know a lot! The laudanum? The drug cocktail in Paris that made us retch for days. We didn't have needles and he tried it anyway, directly, and it knocked us out and made us see things. Remember Cardinal LaFoque? And the Handed Girl. And Monsieur Miers. How can you forget the Hanged Woman?/ Nicki frowned as Armand shifted him a little, but cradled him still, stroking his hair and his face like a doll of his own. He didn't remember any of these people. /That's because they didn't exist! You idiot! Don't you see? Armand's counting on you not to remember. We were his little experiment, part of his grand guignol of playing mad scientist! Those characters drove us mad!/ Nicki raised one eyebrow. /Well, worse at least. And now he's doing it again!/

"Oh but we have modern medicine now, and Bishop has been good," Nicki tried to murmur, but it came out as a low sound of contentment. Armand only held him closer. /That's what he said then too, with Doctor Brocheau. How can you not remember?/ Nicki barely felt the forceful mental kick Nicolas must have given him. Ordinarily it would have knocked him out long enough for Nicolas to assert control, but with whatever Armand had administered, it was like a fuzzy thumping in the back of his head. It didn't even reach between his eyes. /Shit! I can't believe this! Don't do this to me, you little turd. Wake up! See what he's doing! He's taking advantage of us!/

So what if Armand was undressing him when he was barely conscious? Armand was taking away the choices, and making Nicolas step aside. He was trying to make life easy for Nicki. /We never bloody fucking wanted easy! We *are* difficult! We were going to find a balance, remember? No no no no no no.../ Nicki yawned, barely registering the fading screams in his head.

"We'll try a lower dose tomorrow. And perhaps something different," Armand muttered, and added, "you're not nearly as responsive as you ought to be." He left him alone, half-dressed, lying on the bed in a state of blissed-out catatonia. Nicki didn't even realise when he fell asleep.

When he awoke the next morning though, Nicolas had not wasted any time. It was another one of those black out periods he seemed to have, long ago in Paris. Nicolas somehow awoke before he did, which was not surprising since he tended to break more rules and bones as him in the first place, and took care of things to his satisfaction. But this had not happened for centuries, not since...perhaps there was some validity to Nicolas' claims, of Armand drugging him, of trying to control him in ways beyond the span of his mental prowess.

This time Nicki awoke standing, staring into Armand's bloodied, furious face before a fist came up and connected with his temple. It was a hard enough blow that sent him spinning, his grip no longer around Armand's neck. He could feel bruised ribs, and possibly a broken ankle. He couldn't be sure, but he barely had time to push himself up before Armand's footsteps sounded behind him again and he was hauled up by the collar of his shirt. He hadn't gone to sleep with a stiff collared shirt.

"Armand wait. It's me," Nicki said, mouth full of blood and trying to see out of only one eye because the other one swam in a sea of blood. "It's Nicki. I've only just--"

"I can't have this in my house all the time," Armand said, flinging Nicki against the wall. He blacked out for a moment from the pain, and when he came to he could sense the mortal in the house. "But we'll get it right. Not to worry." Armand didn't seem to care whether he got a response or not.

It occurred to Nicki that he hadn't heard Nicolas at all. What had broken him out of it? /He went inside while we were sleeping./ It sounded very faint, and in pain. What had Armand done? /Not safe here. We have to go./ Nicki picked himself up gingerly, wincing at the settle of bones in his right ankle. /Please./ It made him pause, and look to the doorway through which Armand had disappeared, no doubt to retrieve tonight's dose. Where could they go then? It wasn't right, going into someone's mind while they were asleep and messing around. Some part of Nicki felt sore, and he knew something had been done to Nicolas. /While we slept! Without our consent! I couldn't stop him--/ Nicki felt a chill go down his spine at the broken sound in Nicolas' voice.

"Dear God. What have you done?" he whispered, when Armand appeared in the doorway again.

"What do you mean, Nicki?" Armand asked smoothly. All the blood from their fight was gone. Nicki was sure he himself looked a right state. "Come now, I think we will have success tonight."

/And it wasn't right. I didn't want to let him. I couldn't.../ Nicki felt himself back away even as Armand approached. The other vampire seemed not to care, and if anything his eyes were glittering dangerously.

"Armand, I'm going to go out. I told Adele I'd see her again tonight," Nicki said. "If the medicine doesn't work right, I'll have broken my promise." /Get Lestat. Get him./

Armand was folding his hands, looking up at Nicki. "You're a hazard to yourself, walking out there like this. The authorities will pick you up for vagrancy and where will you be? You're in no state to break out of a jail cell."

"Didn't you always post bail for Daniel?" Nicki asked, surprised to hear his voice shake. He was in the entrance hall now, though how he'd backed away this much without Armand noticing something wrong was beyond him. He had his hand on the doorknob. It was just a matter of a turn and a swing and an escape.

"I don't wish to fuel such a reputation, Nicki. Now come and have your dinner," Armand coaxed, and his fingers enclosed Nicki's wrist like a steel vise. Nicki winced, but Armand just smiled that same smile, and tugged him towards the sitting room. If Nicki had resisted, the force of Armand's grip would have torn his arm off.

"No more, Armand. Please. I know--"

"What lies has Nicolas been feeding you?" Armand asked sharply. "He was up before you, you know. I'd forgotten that you used to do that, when you went to your extremes. He must know we're moving along with great success." He went to a small suitcase, still holding on to Nicki's wrist, and pulled out a syringe and needle.

"Nicolas isn't that good of an actor. And you're--you're frightening me," Nicki ventured, trying to twist his wrist a little. Armand's grip only tightened, but his smile didn't waver.

"I will take care of you, Nicki. Nicolas needn't bother us ever again."

"Just last night you said we needed each other. That we weren't the right person without bits of each other."

"I decided perhaps this is not so bad, just having Nicki. I am still getting used to the idea of separate people inside you, though it's almost as if Nicolas has no manners at all," Armand mused as he injected the dozing mortal.

"NO!" Nicki cried out, taking the opportunity to pull away. He barely turned before he felt Armand's hand clamp down on his arm, and the mortal's confused expression flood his vision.

"Drink," Armand said, voice calm and coaxing, his hand gripping Nicki by the hair and forcing him against the mortal's neck. He couldn't help it--Nicki groaned at the scent of the blood waiting for him, and he was weak enough to be unable to refuse it.

He knew something was happening, because Nicolas was screaming, an angry, blind, weak howl that he had not heard in a long time. And it didn't silence him. It just made him...not matter.

When it was over Nicki slumped again, but it felt better than last night's dose. He felt he could move, and did so, pushing the mortal away and taking up his spot on the couch. He lay back for a moment, gazing drowsily at Armand.

/No, no, no, no.../ Nicolas was screaming again, but it was as if Nicki had worn ear plugs and then shut Nicolas up in a small room.

"How do you feel, Nicki?" Armand asked, picking up him and cradling him in his arms.

"Very...calm," Nicki said, his voice not entirely clear. He gazed up at Armand, and stroked his cheek sluggishly. "You're beautiful." He'd meant to say them clearly. He had not wanted them to come out garbled.

"Good," Armand replied with a smile, and bent down to take a kiss from Nicki.

"Mmnnh," Nicki murmured, accepting the kiss, the plundering of his mouth that had all the qualities of an invasion rather than a shared moment. /Don't you see, all he wants you for is this! That's why he wants us, here, like this, compliant for his every wish, his PET! That's what he's turning us into, his PET! Shit! Can't you do something?/ But Nicki was content for once, lying in Armand's arms, being kissed by Armand, having his hair stroked. /Oh for fuck's sake, listen to yourself!/

"And what would you like to do tonight, Nicki?" Armand asked. That was so nice, being addressed by name. Armand never talked to him directly quite so often before. He felt like a decent human being when Armand said things like that to him, in that measured tone.

"Mnn," Nicki attempted to say, and snuggled further against Armand. "You..." /God, wake up!/ It felt like Nicolas was trying to kick at himself, but Nicki was sure that was impossible. How could Nicolas exist anyway? How could two people live in one? Someone was going to have to be evicted. /No./ The tone of the voice sent a chill down his spine, the panick, the fear, the grief. /These aren't our thoughts. I told you. He was messing.../ A choking sound.

Nicki opened his eyes. He was lying back on the bed. How had he gotten here? "Hmm? What...Armand..." He looked up, confused, looking questioningly at Armand above him. Armand was tugging at him, unbuttoning the collared shirt Nicolas had put on. There was a coolness, Armand stroking his chest, leading down past his trousers, into them. "Armand, I...wnn..." He tried to say 'wait,' that he wasn't sure he felt up to it tonight, that he had questions. /Don't you see? Now do you see?/ "Armand! No, I don'..." He tried again, alarmed, but Armand shushed him with a kiss, easily fighting off his protests, his fists feebly hitting at Armand's shoulders as suddenly Nicki was naked from the waist down, legs in the air and his hips gripped hard as Armand thrust once, not even caring, not even hearing the moan of pain and confusion.

Nicki looked at Armand's face past the tears, and his confusion paralyzed him. What was Armand doing? He hadn't asked for this, didn't want this. "What--" his voice was a little distorted...a lot of bouncing and rocking back and forth was going on, Armand's forehead beading with sweat, and that ever-present soreness, that pain... /He wants us docile. A docile pet. So he can do...this. I didn't think he'd go to.../ The voice had given up, whatever it was. Nicki smiled, and frowned, not sure what was going on. He wiped the sweat off of Armand's brow with his thumb, halfway aware of the sounds his throat was making with each thrust. It hurt. It was starting to hurt more now, and he squeezed his eyes shut, thinking of he couldn't see he couldn't feel it but it was there still, every time Armand moved.

/First thing tomorrow night. No more fighting. Get Louis. Get David. Get Lestat./ The voice was choked with tears, he thought, but he didn't think the voice existed. There was just this confusion here, this haze, as Armand took him on the bed and he couldn't stop himself from moaning when the other vampire came, shuddering against Nicki as he whispered, "And now I have you." And then Nicki wasn't sure what happened to the rest of the night. It was a blur of movement, of rocking, of blood, of Armand finally smiling at him and being satisfied and stroking his hair and carrying him around, cradling him even when Nicki didn't know what was going on. Somewhere along the line Nicolas stopped yelling, then he stopped talking, and finally he stopped crying.

The next night wasn't any better. He woke to find himself half-naked, shirt torn, in yet another fight, only Nicolas had gone limp for some reason and Armand was talking still, not knowing Nicki had awoken.

"And every time you try to escape, every time I will make it worse, and Nicki will never know. He can't, can he? The vagaries of your relationship are not lost on me, since he seems to forget what happens. But believe me, I know you remember, I know you are always there, so even when he doesn't know what's going on, Nicolas, I will make sure you do. And he will never believe you," Armand said, half to himself, as he shoved Nicki into the bath. He seemed to realize the expression on the other vampire's face, because he smiled a little, cocking his head to one side. "Awake are we, now? I thought you might like a bath. You were so bloodied from our play last night."

"Mmm. This nice," Nicki replied, sinking into the warm water. He felt hungry, but it wasn't so much of an issue with all this warmth around him and Armand being so pleasant. It unsettled him, to know something was happening that Armand was hiding from him. He saw the scissors on the countertop, and reached for them.

"What are you doing?" Armand asked, and it felt like getting caught at something.

"I'm just going to cut my hair," Nicki replied, taking them with one hand and gathering his hair in the other.

"I like your hair long," Armand told him wistfully, hand reaching up to rest on his shoulder. Nicki wondered why he was half-naked already, just from the waist down.

"Well, this starving poet look was fashionable in the 1700s--ow!" Nicki cried out. Armand's hand had tightened to the point of pain at that remark, and he felt a cold current of fear invade him. "What was that for?"

Armand pulled him up out of the tub. "Well get out of the water and I'll do it for you. You always make a mess," he said, his voice noticeably harder than before. Was he cross with Nicki? The scissors were snatched out of his hand. Where was Nicolas? He couldn't hear him at all. No words. No spite. Just silence. It wasn't even a smouldering silence, any resentful pouting. Nicolas had checked out.

"I like the usual, just a straight cut," Nicki said, shivering as his feet touched cold tile.

"I see," Armand said, and Nicki heard the click of the shears before he felt the blow at the back of his head, and everything went dark.

When he opened his eyes it was to the groggy, swimming feeling he had the night before, when there was all that...pain. "Arman...?"

"You slipped on the tile and hit your head on the bathtub," Armand said, looking worried. "So I had you take your dose early tonight. How are you feeling?"

"Mm fine...but I don't think I slipped," Nicki told him. It felt nice to be held, here on the bed. He was being taken care of.

"You did. Feeding helped take care of that. You really should watch yourself," Armand said solicitously, stroking his long hair. So he hadn't cut it. He was sure Armand was going to do it for him, but then he fell, and there went that idea. Nicki half-expected Nicolas to say something, but he was blissfully, happily, alone.

"I can't hear Nicolas anymore," he told him.

"Good," Armand said. "You are well rid of him." It felt like he was repeating something, as if Armand had...perhaps Armand already knew?

"What did you do to him?" Nicki asked, fighting down a wave of panic.

"The medicine is supposed to help you, Nicki, remember? That's what it does. And Nicolas certainly doesn't help you. He just gets you hurt, and I detest hurting you."

"Yes, yes, of course..."

 

The next night he woke to coldness, but Nicolas was back. He almost sighed in relief, and his hands went up to his hair. It was cut short.

"What..." /We're out, we're out, just keep going!/ Nicolas sounded fearful in a way Nicki had never heard before. They were in the middle of the street, jeans and tee shirt, none of the finery Armand had been dressing him in only to rip it off again. /Come on, la Rue Royale is just over here! Hurry!/ "What did you do to Armand?" Nicolas asked, ignoring the looks from pedestrians who were wondering about the madman talking to himself.

"I talked him into our head. I knocked him out there. Only place I could do it," Nicki said, and stopped. He'd said that, but they were Nicolas' words. Replying to himself. Out loud. "How did you do that?" /I don't know, but we have to go! Find Lestat. Find David. Find Louis. They'll believe us. They'll stop the little monster. Now come on!/

They came to the gate, and Nicki knew Nicolas was celebrating, because the lights were on. He himself couldn't help but feel gladness, to hopefully see them again. When he saw the figure darkening the doorway he plunged forward and felt those familiar arms embrace him again.

"Lestat," he whispered, of one mind and body. "Thank God."

"I was so worried, Nick," Lestat said with that broad smile that was so glad to see him, and his old nickname, from the village. Only Lestat and la Marquise ever used that one. "Armand said you've been lost for days, wandering round. He's been trying to find you! We all have!"

"Armand?!" Nicki drew back. "But he's been--" His eyes narrowed, and without knowing it he felt Nicolas' tone, those old French words coming out of him again. "He's been keeping me drugged and locked up in his house, and he's been beating me and raping me. So don't tell me what lies Armand has been feeding you."

"What?" Lestat nearly roared. Inside the townhouse, someone stirred.

"Lestat, before you hear anything more from that...that cretin," he said, looking for the right words in French after such a long time of not talking to his maker. "I got split up into two minds, I don't know, don't ask me how it works. The crazy one's stronger and he's the only reason we managed to escape. I don't need you to tell me something is seriously wrong when my crazy masochistic psychotic self is trying to save the both of us."

"I'll kill that little--" Lestat stopped and grabbed both of Nicki's shoulders. "You said he...do you need anything? Did he do anything else?"

"Just don't let him take me again. I'm not anyone's pet," Nicolas replied, and Lestat stepped back for a moment from the bitterness, the darkness of those words. "Sorry. That was Nicolas. I don't know what's going on. I don't know how he can suddenly talk out loud from me now. Usually it's just in my head."

"Come inside," Lestat said, looking at him warily. "David? David, Nicki's here. Do you know where Louis' gone?"

Nicki saw David rise up from his desk, and let out a sigh of relief. He was safe, here, amongst friends. People he trusted. People who always made him better, not worse, not like Armand.

He let himself fall into a divan, one of those random pieces of furniture Lestat always had around the house, like farm animals grazing on carpet. He snorted to himself as Lestat and David talked and talked and talked, and ignored the stricken expression on David's face. The carpet was nice. It was thick and it felt like he could melt into it. "You should have come here first," he murmured to himself, and nodded. "I know." The talking had stopped, and Lestat and David were trying not to stare at him. /I have to stop doing that, I know, or they'll believe Armand more than me. I don't know how to turn it off!/ Nicki yawned and stretched on the divan. It didn't matter. Lestat wouldn't let him leave if he didn't think it was safe, and he was damn sure not going to let Armand see Nicki if Nicki wasn't comfortable with it. He knew Lestat. The man would never blatantly intentionally force Nicki into anything, never directly put him in danger. Not anymore. He was safe.

Nicki closed his eyes, and he could feel David's gentle touch on his hair. Somehow Nicolas had taken the time to cut it, and David was marveling at its curls. He realised that David had never seen his hair cut short, his clothes modern like this, that David had only ever seen Nicolas but once, when Louis had gone to see him and he'd been quite mad in his little flat off St. Anne's. Those broad fingers were threading through it, and he noticed David had knelt down beside the divan.

"Where did Lestat go?" Nicki murmured, tired.

"He's gone to talk to Marius. You should rest now," David said in that soft cultured voice, one that belonged in a body much older. /How we change the forms we are given. He's waiting to ask./

"What did you want to know?" Nicki asked, eyes still closed, allowing himself to be petted gently like this. He was tired, but he liked David, unobtrusive scholarly David, who just wanted their stories, even when they didn't know they wanted to tell them. "Did you want to ask me for my life story, to write it down for you and have you lock it up like all your other baubles?" It was said good-naturedly, and Nicki opened his eyes and smiled at David.

The younger vampire looked stricken, and Nicki regretted his words instantly. /He's shocked this could happen to us. To someone so old. And at Armand's hands. He read Armand's book and he never really contemplated what all of those dirty little confessions could mean, what Armand omitted./

"Did you want to offer me counseling, David?" Nicki asked, and sat up.

"I thought...you know any of us is here if you wish to talk," David said. "I may be of some help in the matters of your psyche. Lestat told me what happened, but you didn't tell him much. Are you..."

"No," Nicki said. "But I'm safe now and here with you, so that's enough for now. Did you think you could fix me?"

"I could try, if you asked me to," David replied, sitting down next to Nicki and looking at him quite earnestly. /I like him. We like him. Maybe he can really help. He's older, in the ways that matter, and he's a powerful psychic. Much more than me. At least where it counts here./

"Our kind heal quickly. I'm a little sore but I'm fine," Nicki added, but he drew his knees up to his chest, and then leaned against David, putting his head against his shoulder. "I thought I was better," he confessed. "I don't understand what she made me do, but it's made me so...so impotent. Incomplete. I think I overdid it, severed myself too well, too broadly. Can you look inside?" /I promise not to hurt you./ "I promise not to hurt you. We both promise."

David smiled, hesitating before he placed a careful arm around Nicki, as if touching him would break him, as if any contact would remind Nicki of Armand. It didn't, and if anything Nicki leaned closer into David as the scholar stepped ever so gently into his mind.

/That was subtle./ Nicolas was impressed, but he kept the whistle to himself. Nicki smiled, and he closed his eyes, the gentleness unfamiliar to him. /Yours is a tamed fire, I see now. Well, come in./

It was doors and hallways in a way that their mind had never been, before the old one took them and fashioned them into her design. Before it had been curtains, easily flowing in and out. Now it was secure, each door a lock, each door something the other couldn't open.

/Take a look around, if you can. Neither of us truly know what is going on./ Nicolas turned around, dressed in the old green velvet frock coat he used to wear in the village, his hair tied back and his cravat neat for once. He wanted to look presentable to David, Nicki realised. He actually cared. It still felt odd to look at Nicolas like a whole other person, like a brother who knew everything about him but didn't have all the facts.

David was opening doors tentatively, and the metaphor felt so gentle that both were caught off guard when David opened some of the...the doors they hadn't thought about in a long time.

/Those aren't going to be useful,/ Nicolas nearly snapped, his hand covering David's and pulling the door closed. The screams silenced.

/Those are your screams in there. Are you sure?/ David asked sceptically.

/Mere hollers, mere exercises for my voice,/ Nicolas replied flippantly as he folded his arms. He'd lost the frock coat, and it was the old 18th century shirt he wore now, the larger sleeves with the lace cuffs, the shirt he favoured at the Theatre des Vampires. He looked worn and tired. /And Nicki doesn't know anymore. Maybe it's better. I don't want to remember them./

 

_/No!/ Nicolas' reply was fierce, and Nicki wondered what they were talking about. /I loved them. Whatever Armand can claim, I loved them and I shouldn't forget them, as ephemeral as they were. Leave them alone!/ He was losing it, Nicki realised, this veneer of sanity Nicolas had always kept and was trying to keep even now for David, so he could be taken seriously before the madness really took over. Whatever was beyond the door had shaken him._

_"Who? Who were they? What are you talking about?" Nicki asked aloud, and David looked at him, stricken with pity._

_"This isn't right, what she did to you," he said, and Nicki could feel Nicolas start to lose it. "Nor what Armand did to you and to them."_

_/Let's just move on, shall we?/ he asked, taking a deep breath, his hand going up to neaten his hair and only mussing it up. David nodded quickly, increasingly nervous at Nicolas' loss of control, and followed him to another door that struck his interest._

_David was thinking, when Nicolas spun around angrily._

_/She? What are you talking about 'she'? We're trying to find what Armand did, David. Armand came, in the early hours of dusk, and when we were barely conscious, when I was barely awake, he.../ Nicolas shook his head, his hair getting wilder. /I want to find the false doors!/_

_David paused, shifting, and looked at Nicki. _He smiled. "What's your favourite colour?"__

__/Green./ "Red."_ _

__The doors suddenly had colours, and Nicki smiled. Nicolas grabbed David around the neck, kissing him on both cheeks. /Brilliant!/ he exclaimed, just a little too loudly. "Ow." Nicki murmured, and felt David's wince._ _

__"Do you see what I mean?" Nicki asked ruefully, and they both felt Nicolas scowl._ _

__/There,/ he said shortly, pointing to a grey door. It looked out of place in this world of Christmas colours. /That's him, trying to convince us. It wasn't she who put it there./_ _

__/I can try to remove it, but I'll need your help,/ David replied, and frowned in concentration. He looked so beautiful and powerful at the same time that Nicki gasped to himself, only to cover his mouth as he felt the door being banished. He felt a little clearer now, less confused, and wondered what exactly Armand had done._ _

__"Are you sure that was all?" Nicolas asked out loud, his voice quite different from Nicki's. It drew a sharp look from David._ _

__"When did you start being able to do that?" he asked, gazing at him calculatingly._ _

__"Always, long ago, when we weren't two people," Nicolas shrugged. "Now it seems I'm getting it back." Nicki added, "It comes and goes. He's being so much more co-operative about it this time, though."_ _

__"Remarkable," David whispered, and stepped back when Nicolas glared at him in Nicki's head._ _

__/So that's over and done with,/ Nicolas said roughly, hand in hair again. He was pacing, thinking. The door David had opened had clearly unnerved him, and Nicki found himself wishing he knew what it contained. What odd memory had been locked away? Surely nothing worse than what David knew Nicki could remember already? /It's not for you to know! You're better off. Yes, better off./_ _

__David trailed off, looking at the door he'd unlocked that held such screams._ _

__/You could choose, right? Choose which ones we share? What's green and red but another grey though?/ Nicolas turned away, biting his nails. He was losing that composure he first held when David entered. Armand was gone, and he was on his own turf again._ _

__/It would be up to you what you wish to make of it. So you might work together better,/ David was saying, resisting the urge to grasp and hold Nicolas, stop his pacing, but he knew Nicolas had reasserted control on this reality. It would not be a simple matter to exit without his permission and without hurting Nicki, nor to try for a resolution._ _

__/What I wish to make of it? What if all I want is Nicki to go away? What if all I want is just to be myself, without this stupid censoring?/ Nicolas asked, his face a mask of distress as he neared David. The other vampire forced himself to stay there, to stay still. It was difficult, with Nicolas before him, agitatedly trying to tie back his hair. As long as Nicolas respected him, no great harm could come. Surely this was true... /Have you seen what Nicki's like? He's useless! He's tamed, neutered, devoid of fire, devoid of life! You think he never went to go find Lestat for a reason? We both knew. I made him, even though he didn't know it. Lestat would reject us as soon as he knew! What drew Lestat to us but me, Nicolas, only me, that darkness that Lestat secretly loved, if only to see us fight and swirl against it, against everything?/_ _

__"David..." Nicki whispered, eyes full of fear, and half-way David could sense it, feel the mounting pressure. It was getting crowded, with Nicolas' thoughts and presence looming in his mind even though it felt as if he merely stood with David's psychic self in that hallway, face to face, not even touching, not even threatening, just...trembling._ _

__/I want to be rid of him, David, to be rid of Nicki! He's useless to everyone! Lestat won't want him, Armand only uses him because of me, and what use is he to himself?/ Nicolas asked._ _

__"But isn't he a part of you as well? You're merely facets of the same person?" David asked, and it took all his self-control not to flinch when Nicolas reeled at him, grabbing him by hand._ _

__/You...you almost understand,/ Nicolas whispered, squeezing his hand. /No, no, but.../ he looked off, distracted. He was hunched, listening for something, waiting. /We're useless. And Nicki doesn't need all of...all of me. Just the parts that--/_ _

__"Armand! Those are Armand's words!" Nicki declared, angry. "What else did he do? It wasn't just that idea. Those are his words, those are...Nicolas, what's happened?"_ _

__/Don't be stupid!/ Nicolas replied, dropping David's hand. David took him by the shoulders though, held him there. He was so much stronger, if only because Nicolas let him, confused and uncertain of himself. Nicolas nearly began struggling before David's hands held him in place._ _

__/Let me see. Let me look. Everything,/ David intoned, and Nicolas sagged._ _

__/What the hell,/ he replied, and the green doors flung open, the raucous noise deafening, the screams, the snatches of music and German and French and coffee houses and cries and snarls and splatters of violence and the smell of blood and the sound of Nicolas' screams about all else. /David?/ He looked down._ _

__David's knees had buckled, and he was looking up at Nicolas with horror and wonder. /This is what you deal with, constantly, forever?/ he asked as the sounds continued, the smells._ _

__"What?" Nicki asked, feeling the whirlwind, unable to understand or comprehend or remember any of it. "What is he doing to you?"_ _

__/Do you see? Do you see how I cannot not be in agony?/ Nicolas was yelling, holding David by the shoulders, shaking him. He couldn't stand the pitying look on David's face, his eyes wide with horror at what he heard, what he could pick out. /Nicki doesn't know. Nicki will never know because I won't let it happen! I don't want to be one person again, David! He'll have to deal with it again and I don't want it! I'm fine with just this, just knowing this!/ He flung David away from him, but the other vampire stood up as soon as his hands left his person. Nicolas stared. He was much stronger, even in another's mind, and for a moment the awful noises dimmed._ _

__/How could he?/ David almost choked, ignoring Nicolas' aggrieved violence against him. He had come to a door, was looking in, unable to look away._ _

__"David, what is it?" Nicki asked, unable to stand the look on David's physical face._ _

__/I knew you couldn't stomach it. Lestat never knew, no, he never, not any of the Theatre, who would believe me? Who would believe me over rational cold Armand?/ Nicolas was ranting, Nicki could feel it, and he couldn't stop him, was too bewildered by these unfamiliar sounds he knew he should know._ _

__"You're hurting him!" Nicki protested. "He's done nothing to us but help! He's our friend!"_ _

__Abruptly, the doors slammed shut. /Stop looking at me like that!/ Nicolas' scream was deafening in the silence. He lunged for David, but before he could reach him David had pulled out, gasping._ _

__"David?" Nicki asked, ignoring Nicolas' screams in his head._ _

__"I'm so sorry," David said, his hand covering his eyes briefly. When he looked up again Nicki flinched at his gaze. "I'm so very sorry, Nicki. I can't make you whole. I won't do it."_ _

__"But that's still part of me. It's inside, it's just--"_ _

__"No. It would be putting you back into the flames, and I won't." David stood up, a sorrow in his eyes that was so heart-breaking Nicki wondered if he was right._ _

__"And what about Armand? Those weren't Nicolas' words, they weren't our words," Nicki protested. David cocked his head to the side for a moment, concentrating. Nicolas gave a sigh of relief._ _

__"It's done," David replied. "I only wanted to see if I could fix what she did. Even if I can, I won't. You'll have to ask someone else."_ _

__"Don't you see? It's what he wants. Do you think all my fire is from what Armand did to me?" Nicki asked. "What about my lessons with Herr Mozart? Do you not think I would want to remember that? I know I had them. I cannot remember. I can't...being personally tutored by Mozart was not as terrible as Lestat made it sound. Don't you think that lends some of Nicki's fire?"_ _

__"But at the expense of everything else? At the expense of your sanity?" David asked, still standing._ _

__"Surely there is a way--"_ _

__"But not without great risk. I won't do it, Nicki!" David said._ _

__"David?"_ _

__They both turned. Louis stood in the doorway, Lestat behind. Nicki turned away. It hurt to look at them together like that, just right now, when he was pained and tired and vulnerable._ _

__"Mon frere..." Louis murmured, going to join Nicki on the couch at once. "Won't you please rest? For our sakes if not for your own?" His voice placated Nicki for a moment, and even Nicolas was silent. He seemed to be thinking to himself, and Nicki took the opportunity to embrace Louis. How could he ever be jealous, be angry with Louis?_ _

__"I was lying here. Lestat went to get you or something," replied Nicki, as David spoke to Lestat in low tones he did not care to hear. He stroked Louis' skin. He was so different now, with the fresh infusion of blood. Nicki was the weakest vampire in the room, despite the madness that drove him to ignore his limits._ _

__"He found me in due order, and said you needed me. Shall I take you up to your room?" Louis asked solicitously. He glanced back at Lestat and David with a frown. Nicki caught snatches of their conversation, "fledglings," "mad," "Theatre," and wondered what they were talking about. It was only angering Nicolas, despite Louis' placating presence. "They ought to talk elsewhere."_ _

__"I wish I knew who they were talking about," Nicki murmured in the old French as Louis gently pulled him standing and showed him up the stairs. "I don't remember many fledglings being made at the Theatre."_ _

__"Nor I," Louis replied guardedly, and opened the door to Nicki's room. It faced the inner courtyard instead of the street, and for that he was grateful._ _

__/Tell him we like him. Tell him to stay. What if Armand comes in through the window?/ "He wouldn't dare," Nicki said in a low voice, and Louis turned towards him in alarm. "I'm sorry. Nicolas was complaining again." He looked abashed, and took Louis' hand earnestly. "Don't tell Lestat I'm talking to myself. Please. It...it would only upset him. We just wondered if Armand would ever come in."_ _

__"I don't think he would risk Lestat's wrath. It would hardly reflect well upon him," Louis replied after a moment._ _

__"Stay with me," Nicolas blurted, and Nicki clapped his hands over his mouth._ _

__"I take it that was Nicolas?" Louis asked with a smile, and Nicki looked away. "I will stay with you." Nicki felt himself gently tucked into bed, the shades drawn, the windows locked tight. He had thought Louis might be shy, but instead he was the one nearly blushing as Louis put arms around him._ _

__He woke to Louis beneath him, gripping him by the shoulders so hard it hurt. His cheeks were flushed and he was breathing hard, his fine black brows knitted together in a frown as he bit his swollen lip._ _

__Nicki blinked in surprise, and Louis nudged him back onto the bed and sat up. He always knew._ _

__"I am afraid that I disagree with David," Louis said cautiously, gazing at Nicki in a way that made him itch. What had Nicolas done? "You're much more of a danger to yourself and others when you're separated like this."_ _

__"No!" Nicolas cried. "Louis, you know what he doesn't remember. You would condemn him to that? I want him out of this life! He's not right for it. Would you throw him into it?"_ _

__"I must, if to do so otherwise would be a repeat of what we've seen already," Louis replied, eyes closed in pain. "I'm so sorry, Nicolas. Think of what would happen to Nicki if others like Armand returned, remembering what only Nicolas knows, leaving Nicki defenseless? Please. You almost hurt me."_ _

__"I'm sorry," Nicolas replied, subdued. "You know I would never--"_ _

__"I know," Louis said, cutting him off for the first time, and took his hand. "You know Nicki's listening? He's awake now."_ _

__"Mon frere," Nicolas smiled a smile that felt odd on Nicki's face, and kissed the back of his hand. Nicki withdrew it, putting it instead to his temple. What liberties was Nicolas taking with him?_ _

__"If I convince him, will you let David help?" Louis pleaded, visibly upset._ _

__Nicki slumped. When even Louis was worried with how he behaved...he gave a single nod. "Perhaps a compromise can be reached. An exchange of information." He did not say that he, in some way, enjoyed being without Nicolas, liked this separation. Nicolas seemed to prefer to live his own life without Nicki's reservations. It was like having time-shares, but the house never worked quite right unless they were both in it together._ _

__"Thank you," Louis said with a smile, and embraced him in a way entirely different from the way he had embraced Nicolas. It was strange, how differently Louis acted._ _

__There was a knock on the door, and presently Lestat entered._ _

__"I talked to Armand," he said, in the old French with which they were all familiar, and Nicki warmed at the love evident in his voice. "He didn't sound like himself. He is never obviously desperate and that's all I could sense from him."_ _

__"Desperate at being found out," Nicki replied, tugging at his hair. He wanted it cut short again. "There's no telling what Maharet would do this time." He rose, going to the dresser and pulling out some scissors. Some movement behind him told him Lestat started at this, but he kept talking as he snipped at his hair. "Let alone what she would do to me if she discovered my state."_ _

__"Did you..." Lestat stopped, as if mesmerized by Nicki's impromptu barbershop routine. "What did David say?"_ _

__"He won't help. Louis thinks we should be together, one person, or at least know the same things," Nicki said. "He thinks it's dangerous." Lestat made a noncommittal sound._ _

__"I want whatever you want. If this stops all the pain, all the problems you've been having, then I'll ask David to help you with it. But if it's only going to make it worse. If you like being like this," Lestat trailed off. "It's just...you look like the day we went to Rouen."_ _

__Nicki paused mid-snip, and turned to look sharply at Lestat. Louis was here, why was Lestat going on about that day?_ _

__"Do you remember?" Lestat asked, almost hesitantly, and it unsettled Nicki._ _

__/What's he talking about? What is it?/ Nicolas asked, and Louis stirred. Possibly he heard, but Nicki had put down the scissors, his hair cropped close and short, still curly. Lestat kept talking._ _

__"The sun was in your face and we'd stolen the horses from your father, and gone riding and riding without end. And you weren't sad. You were just calm and content to be with me," he was saying, as Nicki slowly neared him. "We were happy. You look like that day. You look like so many days before Paris. Before all the Parises we've known, the Paris of your university days and the Paris of our little theatre." /He likes us this way. He doesn't have to deal with...with me./ Nicolas sounded defeated._ _

__"You couldn't stand the sight of me, you wrote," Nicki said softly, his hand caressing Lestat's fine cheekbone. The blond covered his hand with his own, keeping it there. "Because that had sealed whatever happened to me in Paris, that darkness, it kept it there forever. Now now it's gone and you want me again?"_ _

__/Ah that isn't the problem, is it?/_ _

__Lestat was shaking his head, closing his eyes, kissing Nicki's palm._ _

__"Nick, I--"_ _

__"It's okay. I'll do it. I'll stay this way," Nicki said, and it was worth it to see the light in Lestat's eyes, the smile of gladness. "If I feel like before...isn't it what you always wanted?" Suddenly, Nicki understood why Armand was content to leave him like this, neutered from Nicolas._ _

__"You don't have to. I want you to be happy, that's all, and you look so content right now," said Lestat, but then he was kissing him and it felt *exactly* like before, as if no time had passed. "I want this to be what you want."_ _

__How could he ever refuse, when those lips brushed all over his face and again at his lips, pressing and surprisingly soft. "I do, I do," murmured Nicki. /Louis.../ Nicki smiled almost shyly, drawing away a little, but Lestat still held him by the hips, pulled against him in a loose embrace._ _

__"It was never the darkness," Lestat murmured. "But that's not important now. I just want you to be happy."_ _

__"I can be. Trust me, I can be, now here with you all," Nicki replied, ignoring Nicolas' growls in his head._ _

__Louis was thinking to him. Nicki could sense the amusement in his voice._ _

__/I don't think he really does know what he wants,/ Nicolas replied, and Nicki could feel the slow, thoughtful pacing in his head._ _

__Louis asked. Lestat was getting a little over-enthusiastic despite Louis being being there, and the latter looked away._ _

__"No need to get excited," Nicki said, tugging Lestat's hands back up and grinning suddenly. "Come now, you've been ignoring Louis quite horrendously."_ _

__"Louis! Ah my loves, to have you happy and whole under my roof!" Lestat reached for Louis as well, bringing him into his embrace._ _

__/Not quite whole,/ Nicolas replied darkly, and Nicki shushed him._ _

__===_ _

__It was a simple matter of control, nothing more._ _

__Nicki bit his lip as he looked at the music, long fingers hitting the notes as he strummed with his right hand._ _

__"Well since my baby left me..." He sang, only half-way paying attention to his own voice, more focused on his right hand. "I've found a new place to dwell..." The bed sank a little beside him, and he felt Lestat's smile against his neck._ _

__"Down at the end of lonely street at--Heartbreak Hotel," his maker finished, his voice thrumming against Nicki's neck and making him shiver._ _

__"Perhaps I should just play and let you sing," Nicki murmured, turning to him with a smile. "Mister Rock Star."_ _

__"We did enough of that in the old days. I want to hear you sing. You don't know it, but you have a beautiful voice," Lestat replied, nuzzling his neck again. His fingers found Nicki's and entwined with them, stilling the notes._ _

__"That is most distracting," Nicki kindly informed him as he pulled away from the kisses at his neck. "I am trying to learn how to play the guitar."_ _

__"It sounds like you have it down," Lestat said, insistent again. "I'm not surprised you picked another string instrument."_ _

__"If I ever get Miasma back," Nicki said, ignoring Nicolas' once-again screams of anger in his head. They hadn't brought her, that night of the escape. It had been too risky and there must have not been enough time. "My violin, that is."_ _

__"When did you start naming them?" Lestat asked curiously, taking away the guitar. Nicki felt bereft for a moment, out of control, but he said nothing, just let his empty hands curl up in his lap. They trembled for a moment, and then were still. Lestat didn't notice._ _

__"I don't know. I guess now. Recently, after the theatre maybe?" Nicki murmured, eyes on the guitar. He didn't see Lestat's worried look._ _

__"It's been a while since I've heard you play the harpsichord. Will you play something for me? In the hall? It's...it's almost a string instrument," Lestat said, standing up, sounding uncertain._ _

__/He doesn't want the strings for us. He's afraid./ Nicki looked up in alarm for a moment, saw Lestat step back. Lestat? Afraid? Of what? He grasped Lestat's hand almost automatically, letting himself be tugged downstairs. /Don't you get it? Our love affair with the violin./ Obsession, more like. Unhealthy fixation. /You sound like papa./ Shut up. Nicki bit his lip again. He had to stop talking to himself. This was a matter of balance and proportion, and Lestat just wanted to hear Nicki play something that wasn't a violin. He'd done it as a conductor for the Theatre, so why not now? Nicolas was fixating and he was reading everything into it that neither of them needed._ _

__/Just try him. See what he says./_ _

__"Lestat?" Nicki asked as they made their way down the hall._ _

__"Oue?"_ _

__"I can probably learn the guitar tonight. Do you think I should go out and get a basso continuo? I never got around to it as a mortal and I've always wanted to try," Nicki said. He still didn't feel comfortable going out and about alone, in case Armand came across him, confused him, made him go back, touched him, anything. Louis usually went with him, but lately he'd been obsessed with yet another video game or other and Lestat had been accompanying him._ _

__The tightening of his hand told him everything._ _

__/Ah ha./_ _

__"Nick, I..." Lestat looked hesitant again, and it made Nicki uncomfortable. He was such a powerful creature, and so strong-willed; even as a mortal he had rarely looked uncertain, afraid. /He's desperate to lose us again. I don't think he realises how far we're gone. How far apart we are. Ever since you decided,/ Nicolas hissed, and Nicki made a dismissive gesture._ _

__"I should probably find some more sheet music for the guitar anyway," Nicki said with a smile, and by then he'd already sat down at the harpsichord. "I know you love this one. You always wanted to learn it, when we were at the theatre." Lestat had been an illiterate noble then, not yet blessed with the vampire speed that would allow him to devour whole libraries at once._ _

__His fingers touched the coolness of the keys, and even as he played he felt the wrongness of it all, Nicolas yelling and cursing and clawing at the wall that divided them. Armand asked, and Nicolas sprang. Midway through the song Nicki stopped, clutching his head, and he could hear Lestat's gasp, the fear in that shuddering breath._ _

__"Nicki? Nicki?"_ _

__"No no no no no no," he squeezed out through his teeth, feeling Lestat's arms trap him there. "I don't want to! It's wrong! It's wrong!" It wasn't Nicki's voice, and Lestat held on even tighter, refusing to let him go, refusing to let him destroy anything. The last time this had happened Nicolas had wrecked his room, tearing apart anything that hadn't suited him. That had only been a week ago. This was far too soon. All it had taken was a nudge. "Get the fuck out of my head!"_ _

__"Armand?!" Lestat growled, grip tightening almost painfully when Nicolas nodded. "How dare he! You--" He must have been searching for the imp, because suddenly the pain in Nicki's head stopped, and Nicolas lay back, gasping._ _

__"Oh god," Nicki sobbed into Lestat's arms. /Wrong song to pick,/ Nicolas rasped. The blond looked torn between going after Armand, who had no doubt cloaked himself once more, and staying here to comfort his distraught lover._ _

__"We'll get him," Lestat said, and from the fire in his voice Nicki knew he meant it._ _

__"I picked...it was just the wrong song. I didn't know. Nicolas knew but then it was too late and Armand had heard it," Nicki whispered, his shudders dying down. His head hurt, he was tired, and he longed for the guitar, for strings, for something calming. Or at least to know what Nicolas knew. "Why didn't you tell me?" /I didn't know you were going to play that./ "That's how...we really are that far apart? You couldn't tell what I was going to do?" /Not anymore./_ _

__"Nicki?" Lestat asked warily, and Nicki pushed him away, eyes downcast as he spoke to himself._ _

__"How are we going to...I don't remember any of my fights with Lestat. I know they, they must have happened." /Oh they did. I could show you some of them, but what would that start?/ Nicki looked up at Lestat, and wished he could calm the stricken look on his face, ease his worry. He ventured a smile._ _

__"It's all right, Lestat. I'm fine, see?" Nicki said, opening his arms._ _

__"I was so worried," Lestat said, holding him by the waist. "I didn't know, I didn't know. I wasn't listening for him."_ _

__"Hey," Nicki said, kissing him on the nose. "I'm done being the victim here, so stop pitying me. Do you want to come play Guitar Hero with me and Louis? I think I just heard him starting up the machine."_ _

__"I'll just watch," Lestat said, his grin returning._ _

__"It's a little worrying," Nicki said as they made their way to Louis' room. They could hear 80s rock ballads already, and he was strongly reminded of Lestat's songs. "He's better than I am, and I'm the musician."_ _

__"He's has a lot more experience than you do when it comes to video games," Lestat said. "He's had a lot of time alone to practice."_ _

__"Are you sure you want to do this, Monsieur de Lenfent?" Louis asked, having heard them down the hall and already chosen his guitar. "Are you sure I won't humiliate you?"_ _

__"I'm afraid I can't understand that barbaric Creole, gar√ßon," Nicki replied, picking up a controller, ignoring Louis' laugh and Lestat's smirk. "You'll have to speak properly like every other civilized person. Is that not right, Monsieur le Marquis?"_ _

__The stiffness in Lestat's posture and the surprise in Louis' face told him sooner than Nicolas' warning kick._ _

__"Nicki, I..." Lestat tried, and failed, to smile. /Never call him that, idiot! Don't you know what happened? Don't you remember?/ Even Nicolas sounded angry._ _

__"Lestat, you know sometimes he will say things and not know," Louis said, shutting off the machine at once. "Things only Nicolas would know." Lestat was sitting down, and Nicki thought he heard movement outside._ _

__"I'm sorry! I'm sorry I didn't know, whatever it is, I don't, I didn't mean it!" Nicki said frantically. Nicolas paced in his head, each footstep throbbing against his temples. /This isn't working! This isn't working for us! We need something better! Soon, or we'll have more of this and we'll be gone and you'll lose everything, we'll be back where we started wondering and fearing if we're going to run into Armand! And we still haven't seen her yet! Now come on! Think of something! Anything! Anything to get us out of this mess!/_ _

__/Anything, my Nicolas?/ came Armand's dreaded honey-smooth voice._ _

__/Shit.../_ _

__~_ _

__"The consideration pursuant to section 23!" Guillaume answered beside him, knocking him out of his daydream. What? The sun felt impossibly bright even in the classroom. Where was he? Just a dream? An impossible long dream during his international law class on American contracts. So he was still in law school, in Paris, a student, hobbyist violinist...not a raging bisexual insane violinist with multiple personalities. There was the sun outside, after all._ _

__"Is something particularly funny about this case, Monsieur Lenfent?"_ _

__"No sir!" Nicolas replied particularly loudly, trying to wipe the smile of relief off his face. "I uh...I was amused by the facts of the next case!"_ _

__"Then perhaps you can enlighten us, M'sieur Lenfent. What are the facts of this case?"_ _

__Inwardly, Nicolas groaned, hoping someone would instant message him any answers he didn't know as he was drilled by his professor._ _

__

__It was as if he hadn't felt the sun in two hundred years. He slung his messenger bag over his shoulder and sat down on the steps of the lecture hall, sunning himself._ _

__"Someone spending too much time online during class, Nicki?" A shadow fell across his face, and he opened his eyes to Apollinaire's smirk._ _

__"More like I woke up to Guillaume's sweet voice barking about bargain theories," Nicki said, making room for his classmate. "How did your exam go?"_ _

__"I don't know why I keep going," his red-headed classmate said, handing him his sandwich._ _

__"Hey! Cheer up, we're all in this together," Leo said behind them, coming up with his boyfriend Lucas. Nicki had known him ages back, when they were first years at the ecole and Nicki first fell in love with the violin._ _

__"You're not in law though. Acting school is not nearly as hard," Apollinaire returned, biting into his sandwich a little more viciously than Nicolas felt was warranted. There was bad blood there, somehow, maybe to do with Lucas. He wasn't sure; he was far too busy to even think, and it was getting harder and harder to tell his parents that he really wanted to do this, this law thing. It would be so much easier to let it go, to do violin, to be poor and starving and happy with his passion. Could he really let go of it though? He wanted to go to New York, to be successful and look back and not have to wonder if his mother was proud of him, because his bank statement would be enough._ _

__His struggles were giving him headaches, though._ _

__"I think I would find both difficult," Lucas said, sitting down next to Apollinaire and dragging Leo down with him._ _

__"Ah oui, M'sieur I-merely-run-my-family's-business, never mind that it happens to be a multi-million dollar company, I'm still going to dress like I have no idea what a stock option is," Apo said, trying to sound good-natured about it._ _

__"You're so annoying," Leo said without any heat, and ruffled Apo's hair._ _

__"Shit, I'm late for the rehearsal!" Nicki cried, stuffing the rest of his sandwich into his mouth._ _

__"I'll give you a ride. C'mon," Leo said, and Nicki ran after him gratefully._ _

__"Why do you hang out with that jerk?" Leo asked, once they were in the car._ _

__"He's not that much of a jerk. And anyway, you're the one who introduced us," Nicolas said._ _

__"I didn't introduce you. He was chatting me up and you came up and the idiot thought he could get to me through you," Leo replied, making a swerve._ _

__"Be careful! In any case, if he was chatting you up, you were chatting him up too," Nicki said. "Doesn't Lucas ever worry?"_ _

__"Oh you know. Not much need now," Leo waved his hand dismissively. They rode in silence for a while, interpersed with Leo's curses at the traffic._ _

__"Okay, whatever. I had the weirdest daydream in class today. Or, I think at least it was a daydream. Maybe I fell asleep," Nicki murmured. "And I think I have a headache." His head hurt and he didn't want to be stuck in traffic, but this was faster with the Metro on strike._ _

__"Yah? That's not surprising, given how much you actually like law," Leo said, his hand going up to massage the back of Nicki's neck._ _

__"Mm, merci," Nicolas murmured. "So I have this dream, right? I was a vampire, like, a crazy insane vampire who was hot for violins or something. And you were there, and Lucas, and Apollinaire, except you all had different names and had slept with each other or something." He didn't mention he had slept with Lestat, Leo, whatever. It would just make things awkward, and Leo would tease him for months, or worse, try to sleep with him just to prove his grand life-defining thesis that everybody was bi._ _

__"Are you sure you haven't got a small annoying black dog in your bookbag, Dorothy?" Leo asked with a laugh._ _

__"Hold on, let me check," Nicolas said, and drew out a newspaper to hit Leo on the head._ _

__"Hey! Driving! Obeying traffic laws!" Leo protested, fending off the newspaper. It meant Nicolas wasn't getting a massage anymore, but it was worth it. They were stuck in traffic anyway. "You are a public menace!"_ _

__"I'm doing the public a service!" Nicolas replied with a laugh. It felt good to laugh. The dream had left him with an unsettled, depressing feeling, but he was back. He was young, his life kind of sucked but it was okay because he had his friends, the sun was shining, he was stuck in traffic with his best friend and they were going to start scuffling with each other soon. So that was all right._ _

__Then Leo jabbed him almost in the eye. "Ow!" Nicki cried out, and tried to box Leo on the ear._ _

__"Are you okay?" Leo asked, not actually caring, still laughing. When Nicolas stilled and held his head, Leo stopped laughing. "Shit man, suck it up."_ _

__"My head...Leo call an ambu--" Nicki's eyes rolled up and he collapsed into Leo's arms._ _

__~_ _

__He thought he could hear Leo's cries for help. That was silly. He had been overdoing it lately and it was just a little migraine. Trust the actor to be melodramatic._ _

__"If it's that imp again..." he heard Leo say. "Nicki! Nicki! I can't get in, go call--"_ _

__"Jesus!" Nicki exclaimed, eyes closed tightly against the pain. "Leo, stop being so melodramatic! I have some aspirin in my bag!"_ _

__"Nicki?"_ _

__There were no honking cars, no car doors being opened. The noises were fading away, and the headache too. All that was left was a dull throb. Nicki opened his eyes._ _

__He was still in the bedroom, but he was lying down, Leo and ...no. Lestat and Louis' faces peering down at him worriedly. He sat bolt up right, and saw that he was back here, the sky dark and the game abandoned._ _

__"Shit," Nicki murmured, and covered his face. /What...I thought.../ "Was it a dream? Is this a dream?" /Oh no, you are not getting metaphysical on me! It must have been Armand!/_ _

__"What did you see? Was it Armand?" Lestat asked, echoing Nicolas' anger._ _

__"I don't know! I'm tired. I had a dream, I think. I don't know, I don't know, I was mortal, I was normal," Nicki said, voice muffled by his hands. He was happy. God help him, he had been happy and just fooling around and now his hands hurt and he was here._ _

__"Do you want us to leave you alone, Nicki?" Louis asked. He was already turning down the lamps, pulling back the bedcovers. Inviting Nicki to take his bedroom for today. "I can sleep with Lestat. You can stay here. I wouldn't feel right if I asked you to leave now."_ _

__"No, Louis, that's fine, that's fine. I can just..." He stood up, unsure of himself, and wandered into his room, Lestat and Louis trailing behind him. He let the door swing partially closed, and as he lay back on his own bed he could hear Lestat and Louis. They were upset, otherwise they would have blocked anyone from hearing._ _

__"...just collapsed, you saw him, his eyes..."_ _

__"...it was just pain, how could he be dreaming? All I felt was pain, Lestat, that's all there was when he was out, not Armand, not Nicolas, not Nicki, just pain..."_ _

__"...should just ask David to..."_ _

__"...too much stress on him right now! Do you want him to doubt his sanity again, Lestat? His hold on reality? He's only just come back from Armand and now you want David to go on in there..."_ _

__/Louis sounds really angry,/ Nicolas muttered, and Nicki nodded. /We really worried him./_ _

__"Do you know what happened?"_ _

__/I have no idea. There was sunshine. There was happiness./ Nicolas almost purred._ _

__"I guess we'll figure it out tomorrow. I'm too tired."_ _

__/Speak for yourself./ And Nicki knew, Nicolas would be up doing god knows what while Nicki slept inside, obeying what he thought were the rules._ _

__

__He was almost disappointed when he woke to the night, the gentle tread of Louis' feet beside him._ _

__"I don't know, Nicolas," Louis was saying, and chanced to glance at him. "Good evening, Nicki."_ _

__"How do you know when it starts being me?" Nicki asked, picking up his tread again. "Is it something I do?"_ _

__"You're just...different," Louis said. "Nicolas isn't really you, not the Nicolas de Lenfent I have always known, mon frere, mon cher, but there's a small shift in who you are. The difference is there."_ _

__"What kind of relationship do you and Nicolas have?" Nicki asked, reminding himself that he was really asking about himself, and not prying._ _

__Louis blushed, and that was all he needed to know._ _

__"Oh," he said shortly. "So where were we going?" He felt it then, the buzzing behind his ears, the pain, the throbbing in his head. "Oh no...not right now, Armand, no..."_ _

__"Nicki? Nicki!"_ _

__He felt Louis' hands gripping his arms, his knees buckling before they hit the ground and the commotion of the people around them. Before he closed his eyes he thought he saw a glimpse of red hair, and Louis' angry face closing up._ _

__~_ _

__"Shh! He's awake!" Leo's whisper came._ _

__"Wha.." Nicki tried to ask, but his mouth was dry. He sat up a little, vision swimming. Apollinaire was there, as was Leo. No sign of anyone else. "Hospital? What happened?"_ _

__"You collapsed!" Leo said, voice thick with worry. "Don't do that to me again!"_ _

__"Get him away from me!" Nicolas cried out, pointing at Apollinaire, who could not have looked more surprised in the world._ _

__"He's delirious! Are you sure you didn't hit him?" Apollinaire said accusingly, but he was unable to hide his unease when Nicolas crawled backwards in his bed, trying to shrink away from him._ _

__"Get away from me! It's Armand, Lestat, you idiot, didn't I tell you?" he was weeping openly now, and Apollinaire backed out of the room in alarm._ _

__"Take care of him, M'sieur l'Comte, or you'll regret it!" Apollinaire declared, and fled._ _

__"Oh Nick, you're okay, he's gone, he's gone," Leo said, trying to hold the shivering Nicolas. "Your brother's coming soon and--"_ _

__"Brother?"_ _

__Leo froze. "Your half-brother. Lucas Pointedulac? Are you--"_ _

__Ha. Ha. Ha. He was going crazy. That was the only explanation for it. He had over done it and and now he was inventing a fantasy world where he could play his stupid violin and it was all going to pieces. The strain was going to be too much--_ _

__"Nicki, please, stop it, you're scaring me!"_ _

__Nicolas looked down and realized he was worrying his wrist red, the friction inflaming his skin. A laugh escaped him before he could stop it._ _

__"I think I'm going mad," he whispered, just as Lucas came through the door, his customary suit and tie for business rumpled._ _

__"Nonsense. What am I going to tell your father?" Leo said, and Nicolas wanted to hit him, irrationally._ _

__"Are you okay?" Lucas asked._ _

__"Oh God this is all some kind of a nightmare," Nicolas wailed, throwing his hands over his face._ _

__"Oh I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! You know how you can get!" Leo protested._ _

__"Please tell us what's wrong," Lucas said, sitting down at his bed, the picture of calm. It was a wonder how he ever got together with Leo. Oh, right. Nicolas had introduced them. It hadn't been hard. A visit here, a holiday there, and then bang, in the closet at the holiday party in Cannes. Or very quickly out of it, for that matter._ _

__"I keep...every time I faint I go into another world. But you're there and you're Lestat and Louis and Apollinaire's Armand but he just raped me and I'm actually an insane vampire who is queer for violins I think unless I'm just--" Nicolas paled. "I must have a brain virus or something. That's it, isn't it? I mean, how much more likely is a world with vampires? That must be it, I have a neurological illness and it's making me create these worlds where all sorts of shit happens to me..."_ _

__"I wouldn't say that's off the mark," a woman who looked like a doctor said._ _

__"Hello doctor. I'm his brother," Lucas said, shaking the doctor's hand. "Lucas. This is my..." he chanced a glance at Nicki. "My fianc√©, Leo."_ _

__"When did you get engaged?" Nicki asked, agape, but still managed to punch Leo in the arm._ _

__"I was going to tell you but you were late for your rehearsal," Leo hissed as Lucas exchanged niceties with the doctor._ _

__"I'm afraid I have some grave news, M'sieur Lenfent," said the doctor._ _

__"I have a brain worm isn't it. I have a brain virus thing and it is eating my head, which is why I'm having these delusions. It's like Cort√°zar all over again," Nicolas said._ _

__"Pardon?"_ _

__"Don't mind him, this is normal. I'm sitting down now, and you'd better tell it to me slowly," Lucas said, feeling for Nicolas' hand and grasping it tightly._ _

__"While your brother was unconscious we ran some scans and I'm afraid he has a brain tumor."_ _

__"Oh God."_ _

__"Is it operable?"_ _

__"At this stage, yes. I've scheduled chemotherapy in an hour. There are some alternative treatments we can discuss but we must start chemo today if we're to arrest his condition. I don't know if it is the cause of these hallucinations and this elaborate history he's constructed, but right now the important thing is to save his life. I'll leave you a few moments. I'll be right outside the door if you have any questions."_ _

__"Oh God."_ _

__"Thank you doctor."_ _

__There was the click of a door, and then silence as they all stared at Nicki._ _

__"Oh Nicki, I am so sorry," Lucas said, reaching for him._ _

__"Oh God."_ _

__"Nicki, we're here, okay? We're real, and we're here for you. Whatever you need."_ _

__"Oh God."_ _

__"He's in shock. He keeps repeating the same thing over and over."_ _

__"Oh God."_ _

__"Doctor? Doctor! What's happening? What's he doing?"_ _

__"Oh God...Lestat, I'm stuck hallucinating my death. If it's Armand doing this please just kill the bastard," Nicki murmured, heedless of the nurses around him, the leather restraints around his ankles. He had been pushed onto his back, but he could see Lucas and Leo standing off to the side, worried, Lucas barely holding himself together._ _

__When the leather restraints tightened around his wrists he chanced a glance at the door and saw Apollinaire standing there with a pitying smile on his face, and something in Nicolas broke._ _

__"No! Hold him!"_ _

__"Nicki, please, don't fight them, please--my God!"_ _

__"Lestat!"_ _

__"Nurse!"_ _

__"Quick, there! Nurse!"_ _

__But he couldn't get away and they were holding down his wrists and sharp things were poking into him and Armand was just smiling, standing there, the coven master again._ _

__"We have to start now. He's...this is destroying him. I don't know how it could be so invasive. The tumor wasn't even that big. It must be crushing some vital part..."_ _

__"No...Armand..."_ _

__~_ _

__"Armand..."_ _

__"He's not in the room, he's gone out, it's okay."_ _

__Nicki opened his eyes and was surprised to see Louis' long hair obscuring the glare of the ceiling lamp. Lestat was holding his arm so tightly it was hurting him, and it felt like the sting of the needle again._ _

__His head hurt._ _

__"Armand's HERE?!" Nicki asked, trying to sit up. It was hard. He felt sluggish, drugged. And his head hurt._ _

__"He was there when you collapsed. I...he just followed me home," Louis said helplessly. He flinched at Nicki's deer in headlights look._ _

__"Armand. Here." He took a breath and gripped Lestat's arm, hard. "I think it's him. It must be him. I'm dying of cancer in the other world and I think it's him doing it and I don't know why!"_ _

__"Please, please calm down!" Lestat protested, trying to rub his back soothingly and push him back down onto the bed. "You need rest. I will make sure Armand doesn't do anything to you."_ _

__"Oh yeah?" Nicki seethed. "You're my *maker*, Lestat. The whole point is you can't know what goes on in my head anymore. The silence, remember?" Why was it getting hard to breathe? His head hurt, but he focused his eyes on Lestat. The lights were too bright._ _

__"Nicki, you're too pale...you haven't fed," Louis whispered._ _

__"Where were you when Armand shoved inside me for almost a week, keeping me like a pet? Where were you, hnn?" Nicki demanded, and even Nicolas was crushed at the look on Lestat's face._ _

__"What do you want me to do, Nicki?" Lestat roared. "Kill him? Is that what you want? Just say the word and I will go over right now--"_ _

__"Oh will you?" Armand asked from the door, and Nicki bolted._ _

__Or rather, he tried to. He fell out of the bed instead, and scrambled back in the corner, trying to keep Louis between himself and Armand. Louis, who was now absolutely furious in a way Nicki had not seen before._ _

__"Armand!" he warned, and it was not hard to see how he single-handedly burned down an entire coven. "You said you would keep out of this room! You are going to leave Nicki alone!"_ _

__"He's been hallucinating since he got here, talking to himself in the street, making up stories. I am only trying to help, Louis," Armand said placatingly, but Louis, much to Nicki's relief, took a single, pointed, step forward. It was enough. Armand left, with one lingering, calculating look at Nicki. The headache stayed._ _

__Louis bent down, moving to gather Nicki in his arms, but the shaking vampire jerked away from him._ _

__"Nicki, please. Let's get you back into bed, where you can relax. David will be back in a few days and then we can sort this out."_ _

__"Please. Please just leave me alone for a little while," Nicki begged, and sank his head down between his knees. He could hear Lestat and Louis' reluctant footsteps, and finally the click of the door._ _

__It occurred to him that Armand had lingered on long curls. He grabbed the scissors off the vanity and immediately set to work cutting his hair, making it a short, modern look. It startled him, how pale he was. Of course, he forgot to feed. As he looked down at his wrist he thought he could see tiny marks appearing, like needle tracks. They crawled up his arm and he couldn't get rid of them, couldn't couldn't, no matter how much he tried to press and stop and pinch them out--_ _

__"NICKI!"_ _

__He looked up in surprise at Lestat's horror-struck expression, and followed his gaze down to his bloodied hands and wrists. The scissors were struck out of his hand and as Nicki let himself be carried up onto the bed he glimpsed Armand behind Lestat, smiling the pitying smile of Apollinaire Baptiste._ _

__"Oh Nicki, my Nicki," Lestat half-sobbed as he tore into his wrist and dripped the blood onto Nicki's arms, the deep gouges healing almost instantly._ _

__"No, Lestat, it's okay, see, I have to get rid of these needle marks," Nicki tried to explain, fingering his arms again, but Lestat had grabbed his hands. "They're not real, so I have to get rid of them. They shouldn't be there." His eyes widened when he saw Armand behind him, something white in his hands. "Lestat, no! No, I'm not crazy, Lestat, it's Armand!"_ _

__"There weren't any needle marks, my love," Lestat whispered, not even feeling Nicki's feeble kicks as he gently put him in the strait jacket. "Don't you see? But this time I won't let you go. This time I'm not leaving you alone with him. I'm here."_ _

__"Lestat, I'm not crazy! I'm not! Even Nicolas will tell you! This is Armand, Lestat, please, I don't know what he's doing but he's making me see things!" Nicki pleaded. The last time he was in a strait jacket...well, he didn't know, couldn't know. Nicolas knew, and the panic that Nicki felt was infectious._ _

__"Please, this will help you sleep," Lestat said in a low, insistent tone, and Nicki couldn't refuse the blood, couldn't, rushing down his throat, settling his panic, boiling him in heat..._ _

__~_ _

__"Augh!" Nicolas spluttered, spilling water on the bed. "Sorry!"_ _

__"Too hot?" Leo set the cup of tea back on the table._ _

__"How is our patient feeling?" Lucas asked, returning to the room with a package of digestive biscuits._ _

__"You can't think I'm going to be eating those," Nicki groaned, turning away. He felt sick. He felt so sick. His hand went up to hold his head, and found smooth bandages where hair should have been._ _

__"Careful. You're going to yank out your chemo," Lucas said, fluffing his pillows and helping him adjust. Nicolas looked to the needle taped to his arm._ _

__"Great. I love a little poison in the morning," he muttered. "The surgery didn't work huh?" They had tried the chemo. They had tried taking it out. They had tried the chemo again. He could remember that much. It was easier, every time, to switch back to this world. He had only one real glaring problem. Staying alive._ _

__"They're just trying this, in case. They didn't get all of it," Leo said, and Nicki could hear the tears in the edge of his voice._ _

__And then Apollinaire came in and there was only so much Nicki could accept about this world._ _

__"What is he doing here?" he hissed at Leo as his classmate closed the door behind him._ _

__"He's your friend," Leo said, surprised. "He takes the night shift, remember? Nicki, are you..." He stopped, looking guilty. It's hard to ask a cancer patient whether he's all right in the head._ _

__"You don't have to keep me company like this. Chemotherapy is doing wonders for my social life," Nicki replied, willing himself to stay still as Apollinaire spoke to Lucas._ _

__"Take care. Be nice, remember," Leo said, kissing him on the forehead. "I'll see you in the morning." Nicki looked out the window, and could see the rays of the setting sun. It had been so long since he'd watched a sunset, yet here it felt unremarkable, inevitable._ _

__"I love you. I'll see you later," Lucas whispered._ _

__"I'm so tired, Louis," Nicki said. He was too weak now to be placed in restraints, and he held Lucas' hand._ _

__"Mon frere, je sais," Lucas said, ignoring Nicki's slip. He'd been doing it more frequently now, and it disturbed him how much the cancer was taking a toll on his brother's mind. "See you tomorrow. I promise."_ _

__And then there were two._ _

__"I know what you're doing," Nicolas said, after a moment. His head hurt again. "Did you think you could fool me?"_ _

__"I thought I could," Apollinaire replied, looking genuinely distressed. He sat down, and Nicki wondered why Armand could have confessed so quickly. "But you didn't notice. All that hell of first year and you didn't notice. Not with Leo or Lucas or anybody, you were so wrapped up in yourself and your own existential problems you never even realised I was in love with you. And now you...now you're *dying*--"_ _

__This was not the way Nicki had imagined a confession from Armand sounding like. What if...?_ _

__"Don't be stupid, I'm not dying. We're immortal, remember? I'm surprised you thought this one out so thoroughly though. I didn't know you knew so much about cancer," Nicolas said, trying to tell himself the shocked expression on Armand's face was not genuine. It was easier to convince himself when Apollinaire's mouth settled into a smile, well-practiced and serene._ _

__"Ah yes, of course Nicolas," he said, sounding so much like Armand Nicki shivered. "As a vampire of course I have had a very long time to study all these human maladies. After all, the Frankenstein I have growing in my lab cannot possibly be perfect if it is weak against all these illnesses."_ _

__"Don't mock me!" Nicki hissed, and Armand drew back in surprise, then narrowed his eyes._ _

__"Is it that we're not good enough for you? You have to invent this world? Well you know what? From what you've told me, from how you treat me, your world isn't so great. You've got people who love you, hell, I just told you, and you throw it in my face with your stupid delusions?! What the hell kind of person are you, Nicki?" Apollinaire asked, his voice full of quiet, threatening heat. He sounded os much like Armand that Nicki was full of doubt again._ _

__"You've always been full of words, my lord," Nicki spat, and choked on the punch Armand dealt his gut. He coughed, blood filling his mouth, and beyond the stars in his vision he could see the horrified expression on Armand's face._ _

__"I am so sorry. I...I just lost my temper--" Apollinaire went to slam on the red call button, only to be thrown back as Nicki launched himself at him, IV be damned, and tried to land a blow._ _

__It was pathetic, how quickly he tired out. He grabbed Apollinaire's shirt and kissed him beyond frustration, feeling him melt beneath him. He could taste the blood mixing between their mouths, and couldn't stop himself from going deeper, biting into those lips. He was almost glad for the arms that tore him off Apollinaire, tucked him back into bed, readjusted his IV, and left before Apollinaire even sat back into the bed._ _

__They looked elsewhere for a few moments, unsure of themselves, unsure of what they wanted._ _

__"I am here for as long as you want me, Nicolas," Apollinaire said, voice low and shaking with the effort to control his feelings. "All this, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to me at all. I can't fix you, I won't try to fix you. I just wanted you. There is only so much I can do. I am not all-powerful. But please, know that I love you."_ _

__Nicolas looked like he was trying to make a decision, and after a while he opened his arms. Apollinaire fell into them, but Nicolas was not done yet. He sat with him, resting, and began to tell him about Armand, and the terrible and wondrous things of his other life._ _

__~_ _

__"Even I know that's damned unnatural!" Lestat exclaimed, as they looked upon Nicki's bound figure. His hair was short, but that was mostly because it was too much to take care of long, curly, and perpetually messy hair._ _

__David had been shocked by the changes in Nicolas. He had only been gone for a few weeks, and it had taken time to find him in the world. When he'd left Nicolas had been convalescing, but generally had seemed in good spirits.  
Now, in a strait jacket of all things, unconscious for the past few days and with his pallor increasing, there was no telling what was happening to him._ _

__"Where's Armand?" he asked, sitting down beside Nicki. He stroked one cold cheek, and wondered if he dare go inside._ _

__"In the back parlour. We're not letting him leave, not that he's tried. At least here we can watch him," Louis replied._ _

__"Can't you do anything?" Lestat asked David, pacing before them. "I can't feel him, Louis can't even feel him. When he was once like this Gabrielle could read him, but now there is nothing."_ _

__"Gabrielle's been here?" David asked, surprised._ _

__"No, but Louis' one of mine, same as she," Lestat said. "They should have some secret conclave. And now you're saying he's blank too. Armand refuses to tell us anything. He must be doing something but I can't shake it out of him."_ _

__"I can try seeing what is happening. It's just his surface thoughts that are blank. You said he had another world in him, that he was thinking himself mortal. What if I--"_ _

__~_ _

__Morning found Apollinaire curled up against Nicki, both of them sleeping peacefully. David picked up the chart at the foot of the bed and scanned the numbers quickly. The chemo wasn't working. It was odd, that there should be a failsafe even in here, that something terrible should happen to Nicki. It wasn't torture or rape, but it was cutting short the happiness he could remember here. David had seen that much as he made his way through the labyrinths of Nicki's mind. They were more twisted now, Nicki and Nicolas settling down into their own structures. He wondered what kind of world Nicolas inhabited, if Nicki here was recovering from cancer and embracing a boy who looked remarkably like Armand._ _

__"What are you doing here?" Apollinaire's voice made him jump._ _

__"I might ask what you're doing here, Armand," David said calmly, not about to be fooled. The moment he'd spoken he knew it was the elder vampire. "What are you trying to do? Did you give him this world? Make him weak with this cancer even here where he could be happy?"_ _

__He saw Armand hesitate, and he wasn't sure if the cancer meant Nicki's actual mental health or something worse._ _

__"I couldn't control the cancer," Apollinaire finally said, sliding off the bed, making sure to tuck Nicki in. "Let us talk outside."_ _

__He opened the door not to the hallway, but to a lush garden full of light. They were walking in Tuilieres, and it unnerved David to realize this was Armand's doing, his memories of sunlight so sharp and vivid David winced from instinct._ _

__"I...After what I did he wasn't right in the head. I think that's what the cancer is. But after I came, after I talked to him as his schoolmate and got him to accept me, it's gone into remission," Armand was trying to explain. "I made the world. I didn't make this illness. I wanted him to...Nicolas tempted me so much, and I thought if the old one could split him in two so easily, why couldn't I take the bits I always loved?"_ _

__It was all David could do not to strike him._ _

__"So I made this world and even when he resisted I managed to piece bits of him back together, the things Lestat loved about him as a mortal, the things that made me love him right away even as I had my followers drive him utterly insane. And for a moment he was happy, but of course Leo, his Lestat, would have to start, whining about me, and he started thinking about me. I couldn't stop him, and then he collapsed and was diagnosed with a brain tumor and here we are. But he's getting better, which means he's recovering from what I did to him."_ _

__Were there laws beyond capital punishment in our world I would make sure you suffered every one of them, David thought, and realized they had yet to call down the judgment of Maharet. They'd all seen what happened the last time, Armand most of all._ _

__"But in reality he's still as fearful of and angry at you as he ought to be, without this fantasy world you've pushed onto him. What happens when you stop?"_ _

__"I can't stop it now. He took hold of it when he added the cancer. He doesn't even know it's him. I'm here for the ride, though," Armand added. He plucked a flower almost thoughtfully. "I gave him the framework and now he's painted everything in, and he doesn't even know. He could live here for the rest of his immortal life, and be happy. Would you take it away from him?"_ _

__"This isn't real. It would be cheap and unjust to give him this forever, to let him sink into this and not have lived and tasted what is truly life," David replied._ _

__"I think he's had enough of life," Armand said, the lightness of his tone betraying his words, and opened the door back into Nicki's hospital room._ _

__"I wondered where you'd gone," Nicki said, and David realized he was speaking in modern French, when before he had only ever heard him in the old French he shared with Lestat. The tricks our minds play on ourselves. "Bonjour. Who is this, Apollinaire?"_ _

__"This is David. He's...an exchange student, from England."_ _

__"Ah, hello, David," Nicki said in accented English, but the question in his eyes was clear, as to why David was there._ _

__"Nicolas. He's in our class. He sits at the end of the row," Apollinaire said very patiently, and smiled when Nicki coloured._ _

__"Oh. I'm really sorry, I have this crazy brain thing it makes me forget people and invent alternative realities. Please, sit, it's good to see you," Nicki said in French, very rapidly. "They call it cancer but I know it's a sentient alien virus bent on taking over the world. See how single-handedly I am battling for the planet."_ _

__David had to stifle a laugh. "Then we must reward you, Nicolas," he said, relieved not to have to distinguish to clearly._ _

__"The funny thing is, my brain's getting tired. It gave you the same name as the guy you look like in my fantasy," Nicolas said, and twiddled with his IV so he did not see the looks David and Apollinaire gave each other. "C'mon, I'm bored of this room. Let's go for a walk." He sat up and took the rolling IV stand with him. "There's a courtyard, I think. It's not too cold to go out yet."_ _

__He kept up a lively conversation, and all the while Armand watched David's expression closely, wondering if the Englishman had the heart to break Nicolas out of this elaborate prison._ _

__"They say I'm getting better, that I can stop these chemo rounds tomorrow," Nicolas said with a grin, and sat down on a bench. "So, what can I do for you, Dave?"_ _

__"I'd like to hear about this fantasy world, actually. What's going on in it? What are your motivations there?" David asked, ignoring Apollinaire's glare._ _

__"Oh," Nicolas said, downcast. He was quiet when he spoke. "I've decided I'm not going to try going back. I'm not really happy there. A lot of shit happened that I don't really want to think about how it ended up in my head, that I'd invent this stuff to happen to me. It seems like I'm a victim in it all the time, whether because of what I do or what other people do to me. I thought...I was confused at first, because I thought this was fake and that was real, that maybe I invented this world to cope or something. Then I realized that giving yourself cancer in a fantasy world isn't really something most people do. I mean, I could have been a rock star or something but instead I'm pretty normal."_ _

__"What if the person you are in that world just wants to be normal, nothing more?"_ _

__"I--" Nicolas' mouth went dry. "Yeah, but vampires don't exist. And I'm a vampire in this other world. I was tortured and imprisoned and raped. I'm a wreck. Why are you asking me this?!"_ _

__"Stop upsetting him, David!" Apollinaire scolded._ _

__"I'm sorry. I did not mean to offend. I just wondered why you refused to go back. Hypothetically speaking, I mean. What if this world really was fake? Would knowing that make you go back to the real one, knowing this was a lie?"_ _

__"I can't believe you just asked me that," Nicolas said, stunned._ _

__"You're right. I'm sorry. Vampires don't exist, right?" David said with a smile. It angered him, though, that Armand would keep him here in much the same way he had kept Nicki captive before. It wasn't fair. He had begun to feel the edges of the world, and he noticed it shrank when Nicolas was upset. What if... "I mean, eighteenth century vampires kidnapping a violinist just to abuse him and get to his lover? That's pretty sad for reality. It sounds like the coven master is just desperate."_ _

__The walls of the hospital were fading, he could tell, and the sun had shrank, like some round stage lamp imitation. It was just them and the courtyard. Nicolas hadn't noticed. He was staring at David, stricken._ _

__"I didn't tell anyone about that. I didn't," Nicki said, his voice shifting oddly. He sounded more like Nicolas._ _

__"That's because it happened. It's David Talbot, Nicki. Please, it hurts us to see you like this. You're in bed, you're unconscious. Lestat is worried sick," David said, and ducked Armand's blow just in time. It caught Nicki on the jaw, and he reeled, the IV bag having floated away like a balloon. The tiles of the courtyard were vanishing beneath their feet, and for a moment they seemed suspended in air._ _

__"What's happening?" Nicki screamed, his arms over his head, and by the time David gripped him by the shoulders they had begun to fall, and Nicki had raised his head with an altogether different expression._ _

__"Hello David," Nicolas said, his smile sinister. "Welcome to my world."_ _

__It was dead. It was dead and dank, not smelly, just wet wet wet. The waves crashed against the cliffs and David felt trapped by the walls even though he could see outside of the maze._ _

__"Armand's left us. He doesn't like this part, knows he could get killed here," Nicolas said absently, the colors in his world black and white and red, shades of grey sparking off his long long curls, so unlike Nicki's. He was crouched down, his long fingers marking off lines in the clay walls. David wondered how long it would be before Nicolas made some decision about him. Nicolas was writing something in the walls, and now that David looked clearly there were many more scratches in the walls, faint fine lines and deep gouges, some tainted with blood. "It was nice, for a while, being a part of a whole again, not being left by myself with the screams."_ _

__Too late, David clapped his hands over his ears. He still heard them, that cacophony of all the wails and grimaces and cries and pleas and screams of terror that made up the sad fragments of Nicolas' life. They came like a storm over them, lingered for a moment as if playing around Nicolas' psychic figure, and then left. The silence they left behind was dead and muffled, no echoes or extraneous noises. He felt the oppressiveness of it descend upon him once more, and almost wished for those voices to keep him company._ _

__Nicolas seemed to not have noticed._ _

__"We were happy in that world. Armand started it and I couldn't stop, he shoved me and shoved at me and Nicki was keeping me inside, kept me inside for such a long time I was growing weak. And the worst of it was that Lestat liked it. Without me, without much of me, Nicki was just the friend he'd fallen in love with, the one who'd presented him with the cape," Nicolas was saying. "He's as bad as Armand, wanting to pick and choose. I'm just a fiction, something they want to put in a box and ignore as if all those things didn't happen to me!" He ripped a chunk of clay off and threw it far away. David felt the bowing of tension around Nicolas, the release he felt in the fling._ _

__"We were put to rights a little. Nicki kept it going. We were better. We were almost all better from what Armand had done," Nicolas said, and David felt a chill of fear when the violinist looked at him, his hair wild and his eyes so black he could barely see the irises. His mouth was set in a twisted line, a grimaced smile. "And then you came in and you took it all apart!" He seethed, grabbing David by the arm before he could protest and driving him into the clay of the wall. It was grabbing at him, tugging him in, and it took all of David's energy to fight against him and keep from being submerged. Was this what Armand meant, when he said Nicolas could kill him with his own rules in Nicolas' head? "You took it all away!" Nicolas roared again._ _

__"Why couldn't you leave us to it? We were happy! All these things that happened in our life never did, were a faint memory, a faint fantasy that instilled none of the fear in us! Why wouldn't you let us go?"_ _

__"It wasn't real! We needed you, both of you! Real life needed you!"_ _

__"Why? What am I good for? Did you need me to stop a war, save the world?"_ _

__"We love you, Nicolas. We love Nicki and Nicolas and if you'd let me I'd help put you back together the hard way instead of seeing you split up like this, no control, no--" David was losing in the struggle, and could feel the clay surrounding his head, filling his mouth and his eyes and his lungs as he choked and flailed._ _

__And then he was pulled out, gasping for air, and he vaguely could feel his shaking him by the shoulders, rousing him._ _

__"David! David!" Lestat was shouting, and he opened his eyes not to the darkness but to the warm lights of the townhouse, Lestat's anxious face peering at him. "What's happened?"_ _

__Behind them, Nicki/Nicolas groaned._ _

__"It was Armand. Well it was Armand at first but Nicki kept it going, he was so happy," David tried to explain, still feeling the alien need for air. "Nicolas almost killed me for telling him the truth, but I've promised him...I've promised them I'll make it right. I'll put them back together."_ _

__"But...are you sure that's wise?" Lestat asked._ _

__I have to. It's making him worse. I don't think he'll last much longer," David said, and rose. Nicki looked worse than when David entered, and he looked at David wildly, like a drunken animal certain of pain._ _

__"How are you going to do it without making it worse? You know if you put me back together I'll be crazy again," Nicki said, his voice containing odd inflections._ _

__"Your halves are making their own madness, separately. It wouldn't be so different," David said grimly, sitting down before him. For the first time, he was glad they had restrained Nicki. There was no telling what would happen once he was restored, since Nicolas had just tried to kill David._ _

__"Are you strong enough for this?" Lestat asked, and David brushed his hand away. He reached up, avoiding Nicolas' fangs, and seized his temples. They were cold with blood sweat. Gritting his teeth, David started taking apart the walls in Nicki's head, one by one. He knew it hurt, for it was hurting him as well, but he couldn't hear Nicki's screams past the rushing cacophany in his own ears. There was so much here, and he had not done this in a long time. He couldn't merely let all these thoughts rage wildly, and then let Nicolas order them himself. He'd be shattered when David was done, and he'd heal slowly. He'd have to order the information reaching his brain. Nicolas could deal with them later._ _

__As he pieced Nicki together, however, he could feel him rising. He worked quickly, trying to be as thorough as he could. It was Lestat's hands on his shoulders that finally pulled him back._ _

__"That's enough, David," Louis said, and David stopped struggling. He looked to Nicki, and realised he was sleeping peacefully now. Not merely unconscious. Simply...tired beyond any imaginable means. He slumped._ _

__"I don't know if I'm done yet," David protested, but weakly._ _

__"It's enough, I think," Louis told him, looking as if he were listening for something._ _

__"If it's finally brought him this much peace," Lestat murmured, as he cradled the exhausted David in his arms. He was afraid to touch Nicki lest he wake and break the spell._ _

__"Let's let them rest," Louis said, coaxing Lestat and David out of the room, closing the door, and putting David to bed._ _

__

__The following evening Nicolas didn't even stir when Louis came to check on him. He glanced up at him with an expression of mild interest, and resumed staring at the wall above his bed._ _

__The blood he took readily enough from victims they brought, but it was much like holding out a glass and watching him drink obediently._ _

__They all sat with him, even Armand, and got no more than a mere glance of acknowledgment. Sometimes it seemed like he was paying attention to what they said, though Armand hardly ever said anything. The last time he tried to enter he'd been thrown back so hard it had surprised all of them, the locks on Nicki's mind. And when they took off the straight jacket he did nothing but lash out and try to strike them, a blind fury on his face so terrible to see that no one protested when they put him back into the jacket, his expression calm once more._ _

__He had not uttered a sound._ _

__Lestat kept talking to him though, keeping up a train of non-stop chatter that tried to fill the empty spaces in his words. He knew it wouldn't be like with the Theatre, when Nicolas acknowledged nothing and no one, when he was just a shell controlled by Gabrielle at best. Nicolas occasionally snorted at the things Lestat said, or rolled his eyes scornfully. And very rarely, he would smile, and it would be that smile of old that Lestat had always known, the one that belonged to the Nicolas he knew and dreamed of and wept for._ _

__"I want to touch your face," Nicolas said softly, quite clearly, and when Lestat caressed his cheek he did not react beyond leaning into his touch a little. "Why can't I?"_ _

__It was the most he had spoken, and Lestat could feel the desperate worming of his hands as they tried to work themselves out of the sleeves, his arms trying to thrash._ _

__"Nicki, Nicki, I'm so sorry," Lestat murmured, fumbling with the buckle in the back as Nicki grunted with the effort, a small keening desperate noise that vanished when he was finally free._ _

__He wasted no time in snatching at Lestat's face through the thick cloth, his grip too hard and too strong to be anything but an attack._ _

__"I miss it, the feel of your skin against mine," Nicki said, and though Lestat was too strong to be hurt by his clawing, it did Nicki no good when he couldn't actually feel Lestat's skin._ _

__Knowing Louis would reprimand him for it later, Lestat grabbed Nicki's wrists--any restraints there always made him limp at once--and pushed back the sleeves until his fingers were free. Though he was rewarded with a smile, Lestat did not let go of his arms, keeping Nicki's struggling hands at arm's length. Nicki didn't seem to understand what he was doing, for as he tried and tried to lunge at Lestat with his hands, he merely looked puzzled._ _

__He stilled for a moment, and redirected his interest at his own hands. His nails were sharp enough that he got a few inches in before Lestat jerked his hand away from his arm, where blood dripped in deep gouges._ _

__"Nicki, please, no," Lestat pleaded, as he struggled to keep his fledgling from hurting himself. Keeping him down was not a problem, with his superior strength, but Nicki had resumed thrashing in order to get away from Lestat. He growled, his eyes shut and seemingly lost in his own world, not even comprehending it was Lestat who held him, who begged._ _

__"It hurts, in the sleeves, it hurts and it has to get out," Nicki was saying, quietly, calmly, even as his legs kicked and his fingers clenched into claws. Once Nicki's wounds had healed Lestat set him back in the straitjacket as best he could, and with a heavy heart sat down upon Nicki's legs, so he would stop kicking._ _

__"I know it hurts, Nicki, but you hurt yourself every time we take the straitjacket away," Lestat said, caressing Nicki's hair. He'd gone still now, but Lestat was taking no chances. Nicki's eyes flicked to Lestat's face, and he frowned, confused._ _

__"I didn't say anything," Nicki said, sounding so sane Lestat would not have believed what just happened, were he not to see the bloodstains on the sleeve of Nicolas' straitjacket, and the futile twisting of his hands. "Where did you find something like this? How does it hold a vampire?"_ _

__"Just something from an old one's collection. Her hair, you see, interwoven. It's strong enough," Lestat explained, trying not to think of Nicki's sporadic thrashes._ _

__"This isn't really helping me," Nicki said, and stilled. "I don't know why you keep doing this. I ought to move back into my old flat. Louis and David are here, and I must crowd."_ _

__"You're sick, Nicki. You need to rest and get well," Lestat said, his voice breaking. "Then you can go back, but right now we need to take care of you until you are all better."_ _

__Nicolas thrashed again, a frown coming over his face. "I'm having trouble with my hands, with my arms. Do you know what's wrong?"_ _

__He seemed puzzled when Lestat could not answer, and instead smothered him in a tight embrace that no amount of wriggling could free him from._ _

__"You're getting better," Lestat whispered in his ear. "I promise."_ _

__"We told each other stories," Nicolas said, quite clearly, and it made Lestat stiffen to hear that voice of old, without the taint of anger or madness. "That day in Rouen we let the horses rest on the hill and we told stories until one of your brothers came riding up--"_ _

__"Augustine," Lestat breathed, and somehow could not bring himself to pull back, even though Nicki's voice was getting louder and he didn't know if this was another outburst._ _

__"Augustine came up and started chasing us, and we leapt back onto the horses and he chased us all through back until it was dark, and you knew he had no head for the darkness, but I KNEW IT SO WELL, KNew it because I climbed out of my window and into the lands to play my violin, and we went back to the stables and by the time Augustine burst in the door we were laughing, half into a bottle of wine and still telling stories, looking as if we'd been sitting there all day," Nicki finished, his voice giving out in the end._ _

__"Yes," replied Lestat, his throat feeling too thick._ _

__"It's like cotton in my head and needles under my arms and they want to get out," Nicki said, his voice no longer crescendoing. "If you can keep a secret, because they musn't know, they won't understand, shaking their heads and telling me things I already know. But you know, you know it wasn't just about the violin or the darkness or what words we couched in it. It was telling us stories until Augustine chased us home on our stolen horses. It was even fighting, fisticuffs without having any reason, just playing, like boys. It was not caring. Not even about the needles."_ _

__"We were selfish and happy," Lestat agreed, and finally pulled back, gladdened to hear something, even so much, out of Nicki, all at once. "Life was good for a while, because you were there."_ _

__"And then I wasn't. And Armand made the needles worse and never, ever, let me tell you about the laudanum or /my/ fledglings," Nicki said, so softly that Lestat thought he'd heard wrong. "And you had so many after me, it just wasn't fair. He only killed one of yours, and she even asked for his abominations. Mine never did. They didn't even understand, except for Justine."_ _

__"Your fledglings?" Lestat whispered, afraid to break the spell, but wondering if this was not Nicolas lucid, but rather in another form of madness. "You had--"_ _

__"He hacked them to pieces!" Nicolas screamed suddenly, and the force of his voice bowled Lestat backwards of his own volition. "He used them for his experiments, his scientific treatises on our condition when he knew they were MINE, my own, and before they even saw their second night they were pleading to be gone, hating me for bringing them into his grasp!"_ _

__"What are you talking about? Nicki, what did Armand do?" Lestat asked, part of him wishing he couldn't believe Nicolas._ _

__"Justine was my own but he forced me to do it, with the others, never sully his own precious blood, no, and when he'd shoved enough laudanum down my throat and made me sick and helpless, too helpless to save them, then did he begin his tender ministrations, his little experiments to see what made vampires vampires, their fledgling bodies so new they couldn't fight him, their own maker rendered incapably mad with his medical so-called treatments," Nicki said through his teeth, seething at last, a wild, blind, pained look in his eyes._ _

__"Armand did this?" Lestat asked again, wishing it weren't true, but finding his own anger mounting. But David had said things lately...Louis had intimated once. Were they both afraid of what Armand would do? Or what Nicolas was capable of if he knew others would believe him? What lies might he seed?_ _

__"To who else's clutches did you throw me? Eleni, who wrote back kindly, polite, censored letters and still thought Armand the coven master she could not refuse? What could you have expected, from someone who set an entire coven, an entire coven of vampires, Lestat, upon just one single mortal merely to get what he wanted?" Nicki said, sounding more angry than mad. "And now he uses needles, and Doctor Bishop Bateman's knowledge but twisted up. Bateman must have known, told him to give me too much the first night, never counting on Armand to eventually figure out the right dose, hoping I'd be knocked out enough for Armand never to do it again."_ _

__"Bishop will be getting a phone call from me about that," Armand said from the doorway, and his startled face was the last thing Lestat saw before Armand's world dissolved into an angry ball of pain._ _

__==_ _

__It was Louis who pulled them apart, as only he ever would, as David sat with Nicolas, who'd returned to puzzling over why his arms weren't free, why his fingers couldn't pry the nonexistent needles from his arms. This time though, he asked David for help._ _

__"Did you know about this, Louis? What he did to Nicki's fledglings?" Lestat demanded, a faint black eye forming. Armand was much worse for wear, but he gave as good as he got despite Lestat's superior strength._ _

__"What would you have me do, Lestat? What tribunal would you have me call down? You saw what Maharet did to Santino, to the one called Thorne," Louis replied, his hand hard against Lestat's chest. "Would you have them destroy Armand?"_ _

__"If I didn't love you I would not let you stand in the way of exacting the justice Nicolas deserves against this...this..."_ _

__"Imp?" Armand spat, as he realigned his hand and snapped it back into place with a wince. "Come up with a new word every decade, would you? That insult is getting old."_ _

__"There is nothing here for you," Lestat said. "Go now before I make sure there is nothing left."_ _

__"I'll just say good-bye to Nicolas," Armand said, licking his own blood off his skin in much the manner of a cat. Before Lestat could shove him away from the door, he heard Nicolas' voice._ _

__"Are you going, Armand?" Nicki asked, almost solicitously, and at that Lestat took up an angry watch by the door as David moved aside for Armand._ _

__"I am being unceremoniously tossed out for my behavior," Armand sniffed haughtily as he sat down beside him. He raised a hand, and stopped when Lestat's wrapped around his wrist in a tight vise. "I'm not going to hurt him." And when Nicolas leaned his head against Armand's frozen hand, Lestat's grip loosened at this betrayal long enough for Armand to withdraw. Ignoring Lestat's growl of outrage, he smoothed back Nicki's hair. "It's a pity you like your hair short."_ _

__"You pull so," Nicolas said with a quiet docility that was puzzling. "There are better ways to show your love, and you must learn. Why is Lestat making those choking noises?"_ _

__"He does that when the world doesn't fit in with his beliefs," Armand said dismissively, and stroked Nicki's cheek. Nicolas closed his eyes and swallowed dry._ _

__"I'm sorry I told them," Nicki whispered. "But it makes the needles hurt less, and you can't make Louis and I bear it forever. Even David knows, now. Why won't you take them out?"_ _

__"They're yours, Nicolas. They always have been yours," Armand said. "You can't scratch them out. They're in your head."_ _

__"There's all this...pressure," Nicki muttered, frowning a little. "They went there, didn't they?"_ _

__"They didn't go anywhere," Armand said, and in a flash he had released Nicki from the straitjacket._ _

__By the time Lestat had knocked Armand to the ground, Nicki's hair was caked with blood._ _

__"You have to tell me what to do, Armand!" Nicolas said urgently, oblivious to the blood running into his eyes, his hands being tied back into the straitjacket. "You put them there and I can't get them out! I don't even mind about Dominique, not anymore! Just tell me how to get rid of this!"_ _

__"That's it. You've done enough," Louis said, pulling Armand to his feet._ _

__"There's nothing in there but yourself, Nicolas. I gave you but laudanum. Who made Monsieur Miers? Not I. They were figments of your mind," Armand said, and allowed himself to be escorted out._ _

__"That's what hallucinations are, you jackass!" Nicolas yelled after him, blinking past the blood that David was trying to clean off him. "I was perfectly fine that week! Justine and I were going to go to Rouen!"_ _

__"What, to re-capture some vestige of your sanity? Some memory of what a pathetic, whining mortal you were?"_ _

__"She was a real doctor, not like Brocheau! She knew what to do with me, and she liked me for me, not what you tried to make me!"_ _

__"And this is what you are, right now?" Armand shot back, ignoring Louis' angry attempts to pull him away from the doorway. "Look at your hands, Nicolas! Where is my chopping block this time? Is there no control for you but violence? Look at yourself!"_ _

__"That's it," Louis said, exasperated beyond his temper, and shoved Armand out the door at last._ _

__"He needs me. I'm the only one with the guts to do anything with him," Armand said, not yet willing to leave the doorstep._ _

__"We shall strive to survive without you, M'sieur. Good night," Louis said, and shut the door._ _

__When he returned Nicolas was explaining in clear tones to David exactly what Doctor Bishop Bateman had done in Philadelphia, how to do it, how they could encapsulate it and make him better. It came in waves, it would seem, like pressure building up and finally cresting in a storm of insanity. They could make it subside, tamp it down. Louis went to Lestat, and put a hand over his._ _

__"You are going to wear away the leather, and don't think I've forgotten what a fit you threw when you couldn't find another of this kind," Louis chided gently, as they watched Nicolas. He was surprised at the force of feeling with which Lestat grasped his hand and refused to let go._ _

__"I did this to him. I couldn't deal with him anymore and I threw him to Armand, who only made him worse," Lestat said, his voice wavering. "And he doesn't care, Louis. He doesn't care that I did it. He's in so much pain he just wants it to be better. He doesn't hate me or blame me, he just doesn't care."_ _

__"And you would rather he rage against you?" Louis asked sharply, and it make Lestat look up at him in surprise. "What would that accomplish? Nicki needs to get better now. He doesn't need to blame or cause pain to anybody. It is enough that he's trying to cause himself pain to distract from what is in his head. I'm surprised he's the one who realizes this and not yourself, Lestat."_ _

__"We've worked out a system. Nicolas has given me a phone number, and we will work it out with Dr Bateman," David said to them. Behind him, Nicki flopped back onto the bed, looking bored and exhausted. "It seems Armand misunderstood, or at least changed the formula for his own ends."_ _

__"Will this be the answer?" Lestat asked, and his grip on Louis' hand was almost painfully tight._ _

__"It won't be worse than whatever Armand did," Nicki sang out. Lestat could only close his eyes, and pray._ _

__= = = = =_ _

__"Hmm? Oh non, non," Nicki muttered, brushing away David's hand, and the vial of blood it proffered._ _

__"Nicolas, come now, it is time for your dose," David entreated, and knelt beside him at his desk._ _

__"S'not working," Nicki grumbled in French, trying to avoid David's gaze. He turned back to the tablet computer in front of him, and with great delicacy wrote down a few more notes. He was composing again, which was a good sign, but he hadn't fed last night and it had already been a week since his last dose._ _

__"Nicki," David said, and threaded his fingers through Nicki's curls. They were always short now, cut early in the evening. He knew it mollified Nicolas, to have his hair short, to be reminded of where and when he was. "You know Doctor Bateman goes through some trouble for us to prepare these."_ _

__Nicolas sighed, rolled his eyes, and stretched his hand out for the vial. The hardest part of David's task tonight was over. Last week it had been an outright tantrum, and both of them had been so contrite afterwards because David had lost his temper. It didn't make sense, when Nicolas after the medicine knew that it was wrong to let himself go too long without at least two doses._ _

__David couldn't blame him, really, as he watched Nicki's shudder as he drank down the medicated blood. The shivering afterwards would have be reported to Bateman, but for now, Nicki could be left alone to his own devices if he wished._ _

__"You can stop holding me now," Nicki said quite clearly, and David removed his arms but didn't move away. Sometimes Nicki was still violent towards himself a few moments afterwards, and Lestat would be furious if he returned from the post office to find Nicolas bloodied up, David delinquent in his turn tonight. "You can stop now," Nicolas repeated patiently. "David. I'm fine tonight."_ _

__"I just wanted to make sure," David said with a smile, and sat back. "What are you writing?"_ _

__"With how long I've been working on this you'd think it was my personal Ring Cycle," Nicolas jested. "It's even worse now since Lestat got me this computer and I keep going back and changing things. It seems like every day I feel differently about my life."_ _

__"It's an autobiography?" David asked. He'd never thought to ask, since Nicolas had always composed by playing, before, unknowingly treating everyone to a preview. Now, since the ordeal and the medicine, he approached composing far more conventionally. They had yet to hear a single note._ _

__"Quite," Nicolas replied, as he leaned back in his chair to turn his singularly deep eyes upon David. If it unnerved him before, it did no less now. It didn't feel like Nicolas was peeling away layers to reveal his soul. It was as if the layers weren't even there to someone like Nicolas._ _

__"Is it wise to do this now, as you're recovering? It might dredge up old memories."_ _

__"I need to work through them. You ordered the information, but I'm the one who needs to deal with it," Nicolas explained. "Besides, would you rather have me do it later on, alone?"_ _

__"No, of course not," David said. "We are just concerned. It's so hard to tell, sometimes, how you are. It would worry us much less if we knew, if you told us, sat with us."_ _

__"You have all been so patient with me," NIcolas admitted. He held his hands out in front of him, looking at the long, tapered fingers. They had stopped trembling. "Where did Lestat and Louis go?"_ _

__"They went to the post office to pick up a package for you. It appears it could not be left here during the day," David explained, rising as Nicolas rose from his chair._ _

__"Ah, yes. I heard them talking. Some sort of secret?" Nicolas asked, before opening his armoire. David watched, transfixed, as Nicolas changed in front of him, without shame, into a simple white, collared shirt and black, pin-striped trousers, He looked so modern now, after the medicine, and David almost longed for the decadent long curls. He caught himself in his thoughts, guiltily, and looked away._ _

__"It was supposed to be," David said, suddenly shy for some reason._ _

__"Hey," Nicolas said gently, long fingers caressing David's jawline and bringing his chin up to look at him. He granted David a smile, and leaned down._ _

__Abruptly, David stood up, pushing him away with all his self-control._ _

__"What is it, what's wrong?" Nicolas asked, flustered._ _

__"You're not---this would be taking advantage of you," David said at last, trying his hardest to look at Nicki. "I won't entertain the idea...not until you're better."_ _

__"I *am* better," Nicolas said, striding over and grasping David by the hand. "You made me better, remember? You have been trying so hard."_ _

__"As have you. But you are not entirely better, Nicolas. Last week..." David began, and trailed off. He did not want to think of last week. "And you have yet to feed. Why don't we go out? We can be back by the time they return."_ _

__"Just a quickie?" Nicolas asked with a wry smile. His hand went up to David's jaw again, and David fought the urge to flinch, letting his face be turned towards Nicolas'. The violinist's lips brushed his before he could stop him, but released him as soon as they touched, just a whisper across his face._ _

__"No, Nicolas," David said firmly, guiding his hands away, but even Nicolas could see he was powerfully tempted. "Come on," he sighed. "Why don't we see if you're up to hunting tonight?"_ _

__Moments later, they could see it had been a mistake. Nicolas' shirt was a complete mess. David's wasn't much better, but at least it wasn't because he had torn open a man's neck and had his dinner fountain down his chest while he worried the wound like a confused animal. Nicolas was panting against the wall, eyes glazed and body slack as all the tension drained out of him. David shook his head at the scene. He should have known, should have seen this coming. There had been no other way to find out, though, than to try, but even then he should have been quicker. The gash was simple enough, rough the way a messy knife would could be. He held his breath as he concentrated on incinerating the wallet._ _

__He had simply assumed Nicolas was in some sort of zone, but he should have known as soon as Nicolas stopped listening to what he said. It was only through quick thinking that David dragged them into this alleyway instead of letting Nicolas take the man on the main avenue._ _

__He turned to his charge, squatting down to inspect him. "Nicolas, can you hear me?"_ _

__Nicolas' eyes flickered, and a bloodied finger came up to languidly draw invisible words in the air. David hadn't seen him like this before. Armand had once described it to him though, the animal frenzy Nicolas sometimes entered when he killed, the peace he found only in drinking up the mortal's death. It stunned him enough, every time, to leave him pliable. It was the only way any of the Theatre members could get him to return to the theatre after a hunt. In those times, a bloody mess in a back alley did not invite questions, but they still knew not to let Nicolas out too much._ _

__"I think you've had enough," David decided, and pulled the limp figure to his feet. "Come along. Let's get you clean." Nicolas curled against him, limp against his shoulders as his head lolled._ _

__"I don't like being on it," Nicolas mumbled into David's neck. "It doesn't make me better. It's just a stopgap." The sudden tightness in Nicolas' grasp on his arms was the only warning he had before the fangs sank deep into his neck._ _

__It was crushing, to be drained like this, and through the shock David could feel his knees hit the asphalt. Something, someone, slammed against his mind._ _

__/Oh Daaaaviiiiid..../_ _


	2. Monsieur Miers and Justine Tatin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nicolas reveals to David his first fledgling and asks the critical question: who was real? David discovers how sane Nicolas used to be before Armand.

He moaned, for Nicolas had stopped trying to drain him, having now focused on entering his mind instead.

/You're afraid of me, of what I can do. Why would you let me in if Lestat is afraid to let me even touch a guitar?/ Nicolas materialized in front of him, the same as ever, but clean, not bloody, dressed in a black tee shirt and jeans. His hair was cut short, which was a relief. /I'm not two people anymore, David. Whether or not my hair is short doesn't tell you if I'm sane or not./ He offered David a hand up, and David realised that with that step, they were walking into Nicolas' mind.

/So I have a problem here, David,/ Nicolas said, deceptively reasonable. Two high-backed chairs materialized before them, and Nicolas sat down. A table, with lace and a tea service appeared. /Please, have a seat. Scone?/ David accepted one tentatively, and was amazed to find the tea perfect to taste. He fought against his vampiric instinct, trying not to recoil at the feel of anything in his mouth other than blood. /I hope you find it authentic? My subconscious has been trying to order my memories, my thoughts. Bravo to you for your work by the way. I do not think my mind has been this clear since I went to university./ He took a sip of his tea, without the obvious struggle David faced. Perhaps he had more experience living and retreating inside his head. /David, I am having trouble with my memories of the Theatre./

 

 _/I know, I know,/_ Nicolas said, not resorting to French. He was trying hard to be polite and solicitous, David realized. He genuinely needed David's help. _/There are a few more puzzle pieces you did not manage to solve, and this is one of them. You see, I am having some confusion over what is real and what is not in these memories. Usually, with the medicine, I can be objective when I recall, but for some reason I cannot understand what I see. Will you help me? Will you walk through me?/_

 _Can we do this somewhere more comfortable?_ David asked, a part of himself still feeling the asphalt, Nicki's limp body against his.

Nicolas hesitated, and shook his head. _/I can't be sure you won't refuse me back at home. And.../_ he looked away. _/I can't be sure I will remember this request./_ He stood up. _/Will you help me, David? Tell me what isn't real? My hallucinations can't hurt you if you don't believe in them, but if they're real, then I want to know./_

The chair disappeared as soon as David stood up, and wooden walls came up around him. He was standing alone in a corridor, candles flaming in the dimness. He had not realized there was so little light, how little illumination candles gave before there was gas and electricity.

The floorboards shook beneath him, and he moved aside for the figure that headed down the hallway. It jarred him for a moment, to see Nicolas with his hair tied back, dressed in clothes of the past, tidy and seemingly sensible. There was a fire in his eyes that David had never seen before, as if the years had extinguished them with each new tragedy.

"Nicki! Nicki, please!" a woman's voice cried behind him, and with an exasperated sigh, Nicolas stopped right before David, and whirled around. A beautiful woman in a black dress hurried over, her steps light, her slender hands clasped in worry.

"Yes, Eleni, my dear?" Nicolas asked gently. David was surprised by his patience. From Lestat's book it has sounded like Nicolas was a raving lunatic during this time. Then again, Lestat had a tendency to embellish, even if it was about such sensitive subjects.

"Oh Nicki, don't go to him!" Eleni pleaded, and her hand grasped Nicolas'.

"Ah, but our esteemed 'coven master' has requested my presence, commanded it, so how can I refuse? Why are you so worried, dear loyal acolyte of the old coven of Les Innocents?" Nicolas asked.

"You've done nothing wrong for weeks and weeks. There is no reason he should wish to see you!" Eleni finally confessed. "I just...I worry, Nicolas. What he does to you, what you do to each other..."

"So you don't trust his intentions?" Nicolas asked, and David could see the surprise on his face was real. "Eleni, you who followed him into the filth and muck of a cemetery, you who suffered yourself to live and starve amongst the bones of mortals as vampires screamed around you, you who blindly joined an army of vampires sent to capture one. single. weak. mortal. violinist." He stopped, bit his lip, and smiled. "You are afraid, which is wise, but you do not trust his wishes? After all that? Pray what has changed?"

"Nicolas, you know we care for you. I thought you had put aside what we did to to you in Les Innocents," Eleni said, crestfallen as she looked away in shame.

"Tut tut, I have, I have," he said, and gently tilted her chin upwards with a smile. "Now I am going to see what Armand wants, and you are not to worry. Even if you have appointed yourself the mother hen of this brood, he is still going to be the papa, is he not?" He patted her hand, and walked away. As he did so, he called over his shoulder, "After all, Armand did promise *him* that he would not harm me!" Eleni stood in the hallway, shocked into stillness by the mention of Lestat, and David thought he understood. Of the twin hatreds of Nicolas de Lenfent in the 18th century, he hated Lestat much much much more, by far.

David walked with Nicolas out into the Parisian streets, and staggered momentarily at the smells of bygone days when Baron von Haussman had not yet bulldozed his way through the muck and sewage that was Paris. Nicolas kept his head down, the collar of his green velvet coat turned up as he hurried through the streets. He came to a stop at the College of Physicians, and slipped quietly into an archway past a guard before climbing a set of stairs into one of the few still-lit rooms of the dormitories. David had thought Nicolas unsuited to go out by himself, but this was clearly not the case, since Nicki had alerted no one, and even had gone so far as to befuddle a mortal guard to gain entrance.

"Nicolas!" a bright young mortal woman, her hair blonde and golden even in this dim candlelight, stood up and embraced him. She was dressed in breeches and a man's shirt, however, and she pored over some test tubes on the desk before her.

"Justine, my pet. How have you been?" They kissed tenderly, and she shivered with delight.

So this was his fledgling to be. The glow on Nicolas' face was painful to see, the depths of his love for her written so clearly across his features that already David was dreading to see it shattered.

"Careful! I don't want Victor to wake up!" Justine protested.

Nicolas snorted. "I cannot believe he still thinks you are a man. You have been living together for two years now."

"I am very careful, and your visits are not helping!" Justine said in a mock pout as she grabbed her coat. "Much more of this and I will be expelled!"

Nicolas let her pull him out the door and into the streets again, where they walked side by side like young students.

"Your work is going well, I trust?" Nicolas asked, an arm around her narrow shoulders. WIth a hat on, she passed quite cunningly for a soft-faced youth.

"I should ask the same of yourself. And as your physician I must ask, have you had any more of your episodes?" she asked in concern. A shadow passed over Nicolas' face, and David recognized the stormcloud at once. To his surprise, it passed, and did not stay.

"God has been merciful," Nicolas supplied, and she did not press the issue. "He sees that I have you, and into your skillful hands do I commend myself."

"Mmm, your hands are skillful as well, in playing my body and my soul," she whispered, and they stopped beneath a broken streetlamp.

David looked away, and closed his ears and eyes to the sounds of their lovemaking.

When he looked back, she was readjusting her hat, and as an afterthought checking around them, but it was so late there was no one on the streets. Her face was pink and she was fighting to get her breath back, but she was grinning and could not stop kissing Nicolas.

"Are you going to ask him tonight?" she asked, buttoning up her coat once more.

"Mm, yes," Nicolas said, pulling her close. "He desires an audience with me, and so I must attend. I will ask him then, and we shall see."

"I want to be with you forever, Nicolas. And I think I can help you," she said. "Please trust me when I say I know what I am doing. I have seen you kill. I know what you are and I still want to be with you for always, as we are now."

David only heard Nicolas' whispered reply because the memory held it. Even if Nicolas had been only half-aware David still would have heard it, because Nicolas' subconscious could remember even if Nicki had never known.

After the lovers said good night, David followed Nicolas down twists and turns in the maze that was the theatre, down stairs and into the heavy stone vaults where presumably Armand kept his office. The torchlight flickered and died against the rough-hewn stone, but Nicolas seemed to know his way by heart. He walked purposefully and swiftly, but the fingers of his left hand were constantly moving, composing, practicing. He knocked on the door, which swung inwards of its own volition.

Armand sat in a high-backed wooden chair behind an equally heavy-looking desk. The room had candles everywhere, and in the flickering light his face did look ethereal, almost as if it glowed. He was dressed more formally than Nicolas, his cravat neat and his cuffs immaculate.

"M'sieur," Nicolas said, with a half-bow. "You requested my presence?"

They discussed the growing political unrest, and it was the sanest conversation David had ever heard coming out of Nicolas. The violinist explained and articulated the concerns and the laws, though he gave the peasants far more credit for their patience than would actually occur in history.

"If I relocate the investments there, it is likely the theatre will be self-sufficient for another fifty years," Armand said, making a note. "Thank you, M'sieur de Lenfent."

"M'lord?" Nicolas asked, and David realized this was very early, before such words produced flinches and blows from Armand.

"Do you have something else to tell me, Nicolas?"

"There is someone I want to have join us. Her name is Justine Tatin," Nicolas said nervously. "She has met Eleni, who approved. She's a doctor, a physician who works with the asylum. She has this theory that the inmates there can be cured, m'lord."

"Really? How novel," Armand said, his tone neutral and his eyes boring into Nicolas. "Is she another of those impersonators then, women who refuse this time's restrictions on their sex?"

"Yes. She teaches at the College," Nicolas answered. "She knows about me, about us. She is not afraid. If I could just bring her here. She is willing, my patron, and she understands me."

"Then she is rare indeed," Armand said, and clasped his hands atop the desk. He looked like a child waiting for his lessons. Nicolas had one of those youthful faces, but he was twenty years old when he was made. "Bring her here then, tonight. There is ample time for you to do it. I will even help."

Nicolas tried to hide his surprise, and left so swiftly David could hardly catch up. It did not seem to matter so much though, since Nicolas had no idea what Armand did in these hours once he left his presence. Nicolas' speed surprised David. He had not seen the vampire really use his powers to such an extent, but here he seemed unafraid of what he might encounter.

He stole silently up to her room, and shook her gently in the darkness. The only light that could be seen was through the windows, and they smiled at one another. "He's agreed. Are you ready tonight?" Nicolas whispered, and she kissed him so thoroughly David had to look away, not sure how he felt about being admitted into such a private moment.

"Just a second," she whispered to Nicolas. "There's my bag. I have had it packed since the moment you asked me. Be ready to run. I just want to do this one thing." She giggled, and lit a few candles before bringing the candlesticks to the other bed in the room. "Victor!" she called quite loudly. The man in the other bed woke up abruptly.

"Justin? What is it?" he asked sleepily. With a grin, she shook out her hair.

"This is what I think of your ideas about the female sex!" she cried, and lifted up her shirt. His eyes widened and she took advantage of his moment of shock to dash out of the room, grabbing Nicolas' hand as she departed in laughter. "I've been wanting to do that to him since we moved in!"

"Splendid! The look on his face!" Nicolas laughed, running beside her, feeling the freedom stretch out before him. It was a totally alien expression, and David realized with a cold feeling in his gut, that Nicolas was happy.

They returned to the darkness of the theatre, Justine's hair glowing from the many candles of the room. She looked around her, unafraid, and curtsied to Armand in the deep stone room.

"Enchanté, madmoiselle," Armand said, kissing the back of her hand. "You have plans with Nicolas then?"

"We have talked it over," she replied. "I am prepared." Armand nodded, and gestured ever so slightly. He watched like some benign angel over the proceedings, and as she died her mortal death, hand clasped in Nicki's, he knelt beside Nicolas.

"You gave her all you had, Nicolas. You should not have done that. It will take you as long as her mortal death to recover," Armand said, as Nicolas lay blinking and panting on the floor.

"I want her to be strong," Nicolas gasped, and then smiled up at Armand. " Strong for the journey too." Then, at Armand's puzzlement, he said, "Did Eleni not tell you? We'll be leaving tomorrow, just for a little while, a month at most. She wants to see the country. She's never been outside the city and I promised I would show her Auvergne, and we'd go and find the sea together." He was looking at Justine with an indulgent smile on his face. "I wish I could hold her as she died. Will you help me?"

Nicolas had not been looking at Armand's face, David realized, which was why David couldn't see Armand's reaction to the news of Nicolas' holiday from the theatre. The smile on his face couldn't have been natural, however, nor the vial that he uncorked. Some foreign smell was mixed in with the blood, David could tell, but Nicolas was too exhausted to detect it.

"This will make you stronger. I prepared it while you were out, from a few hapless layabouts," Armand said, as he propped Nicolas up against his chest. "You really gave her too much. There was no need."

"Thank you, Armand. I know I have been difficult. You did not have to do this yet you still helped. I thank you," Nicolas said with a smile, without guile or bitterness. David's hand passed through his, like a ghost's, and he could not stop Nicolas from drinking down every drop. Instantly his pallor increased, and he gripped Armand's arm so tightly his knuckles turned white. "Something's wrong...Armand..."

Justine had awoken by now and had come to his side swiftly. "What did you do to him?" she asked accusingly as she cradled Nicolas' head in her lap. His eyes were glazed, rolling in his head, and he looked sick. "What was in that?"

"Laudanum," Armand said simply. "Like you, Madmoiselle Tatin, I am a scientist. I have always wondered what would be the effects of drugs on what you are now privileged to call 'our kind.'" He stood up and looked down at the prone couple. "It is a pity he gave you so much of his blood. It is quite a waste."

"Nicki? Nicki!" she shook him gently, but he moaned, his body curled up and shivering as he dry retched. "You monster! Why would you do this?"

"I am the coven master. It is my responsibility to see that this coven continues. It cannot do so if our chief playwright and conductor suddenly leaves to pursue his own romance out in the world, uncertain of his return or our welfare. Do you not find that selfish? Had he written a stack of plays and then informed me of his intent to leave, I may have been merciful, and merely required that he remain. But his dressing room shows no signs of advance work, and he informs me now, like the naïve madman that he is, that he shall whisk you away on a bucolic pastoral journey to the sea. This is unacceptable," Armand said. He seized her arm and pulled her up even as she struggled. Nicolas fell to the floor, though he reached out for Justine.

"So you intend to imprison him, as if he is a device that churns out money for you?" Justine asked boldly, her face defiant as she glared at Armand.

"Oh, the both of you," Armand said, and dragged her kicking and biting into the darkness. David tried to follow, but Nicolas' perception had not traveled so far, and in any case he was in a ball of nausea and pain. David could hear Justine's screams, however, and Nicolas answered each with a moan and shuddering attempt to rise to his feet.

"Don't bother," Armand said when he returned. He picked Nicolas up easily and bound him to a chair with leather straps. These prevented him from curling within himself, and David could see the red drops of blood sweat on his forehead. "You must understand, Nicolas, that I am your lord and master. This is a concept I must impress upon you, especially after tonight. Lestat merely said I mustn't kill you, you see. He said nothing about anything else." He straddled Nicolas' lap, and gripped the sides of Nicolas' head. "Do you hear me, Nicolas? Or is the laudanum all you know now? Certainly Justine must be wishing she had some. It would be preferable to her present situation. I hope you can come to accept, with time, that she must not be allowed to continue. But first, you must be disciplined personally."

Nicolas' teeth were gritted with pain and anger, but he could not bring himself to raise his head, such was the pain coursing through him. Armand's fist collided with the side of his temple, and something inside him snapped. He roared his rage into Armand's face. It was just so much easier to let go, to let it all out. The pain was there, but it was being shoved aside, ignored for the force of the anger and the hate inside him.

"Release her!" Nicolas screamed at him above the pain and the whirling in his skull, the pounding in his head. He glared into Armand's eyes, but as he did so his concentration was broken by a man in a harlequin who waved his hand between their faces. Nicolas looked up in surprise and the man bowed. "What more madness is this, Armand?" The coven master looked behind him curiously, but did not seem to see the man. "You bring Monsieur Miers here..." Armand rose, and David could see the man's hand pass through Armand's neck with no recognition from the vampire. "Be careful! He wants to destroy you--" Nicolas stopped as his body was racked by coughs and convulsions, his body rebelling against the laudanum. He paled even more as the clown pantomimed a choking motion around Armand's neck, and brought out a sword. "No! Whatever he's done, it can still be remedied! Don't kill him!"

"Nicolas, have you truly gone mad this time?" Armand asked wryly, but David could see he was unsettled. Perhaps Nicolas' previous rants had made some measure of sense. Not like this. Nicolas' eyes were wild, frantic, and yet he still showed some respect for Armand, as if this was all a bad dream from which he could emerge, everything explained away.

David watched as the man dropped the sword, did a cartwheel around the room, chopped off his own head, and stuck his eyeballs on his fingers to waggle them in front of Nicki's face.

It wasn't until Armand stuffed Justine's hat into Nicki's mouth that David could remove his hands from his ears, that terrible scream muffled for now. Armand watched as dry sobs wracked his body, wasting precious blood. He shook his head, and disappeared into the darkness again.


	3. Cardinal La Foque

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As he is blackmailed with his fledgling's life in exchange for work for the Theatre des Vampires, Nicolas desperately tries to keep his sanity even as he suffers in silence from Armand's attentions.

Then the darkness dissolved and the whiteness of Nicolas' mind came up again. Nicolas was waiting, dressed in modern clothes, hair clipped short, sunglasses perched on his forehead, clipboard in hand.

"Well? What's the verdict?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" David replied hoarsely. He wanted to hold Nicolas, to fix it, to have not made it happen.

"Who was Monsieur Miers?" Nicolas asked insistently.

"He wasn't real. He was a hallucination, perhaps your first," David told him, and as he tried to sit down a chair materialized under him. "Nicolas, is this what you want me for? To tell you who was real and who wasn't?"

"Well, yes. I have a small list, just about five, and I have figured out a way to show them to you without...without reliving it," Nicolas said quietly. He paused. "Was Justine real?"

"Yes," David said, nodding vigorously. "She was real and her love for you was real, Nicki. What happened to her?"

"She died," Nicolas said simply, and said no more before the walls came up again.

They were in Nicolas' dressing room, the one he had shared with Lestat as a mortal. It was in partial disarray, as were Nicolas' clothes. His ribbon was half-tied, his cravat limp and his clothes stained with ink. Eleni was there, along with a vampire David did not recognize.

"Nicki‚Äì" she placed a hand on his arm, only to be violently flung off.

"I am WRITING!" Nicolas screamed at her, and the pain in his voice made her flinch. "Can't you see? Tell him that. I am writing. I'm only writing, that's all I'm doing. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just writing." He muttered the same words to himself as he wrote and scratched at the pages, his inkstained fingers nearly touching the paper.

She nodded to the other vampire, who grasped him by the arms. Nicki kicked out, but his captor was much stronger, and dragged him away from his desk. David looked down, and saw nothing but scribblings, half-coherent sentences. Nicolas had been writing, but what David could not venture to fathom. He followed the trio down the hallway and stiffened when he saw Justine's hat on Armand's desk. 

"Poor dear Nicolas," Armand said, watching as Eleni hovered and the third vampire tied Nicki down in his chair. "You have not been the same since your failure with dear madmoiselle Justine Tatin, have you?" At the sound of her name Nicolas snarled and bucked against the restraints. David could tell by his pallor that he had not fed for nearly a week, and surely at this time he had much less of the strength Nicolas possessed now. "Eleni, Felix, you may leave us. Nicolas and I need to have yet another regrettable talk about his productivity, and the sorry state to which his grief has reduced him."

The moment the door closed behind them, however, Armand left as well, leaving Nicolas to seethe and giving David some time to inspect him. This was a Nicolas greatly changed. He did not think vampires aged, but years seemed to have come upon Nicki. He wore a cravat, but it was only half-tied. His shoes were scuffed, his hands twitched constantly, and David was sure he could see blood stains on his sleeves. He wore no vest and no coat, but at least his shirt was still tucked in. The light in his eyes that glowed in Justine's presence had faded and shrunk, and his lips were turned downward as if it had forgotten anything but woe. His hair was wild, his expression haggard, and he looked as if every day was a constant struggle to maintain some semblance of normality. Justine's death--if she was dead already--had hit him hard.

Nicolas began struggling again, and David turned to see Armand entering with the vial in his hand, and the unusual figure of a mortal following behind. From his robes and hat, he looked to be a cardinal. Armand crouched before Nicolas with an angel's smile and uncapped the vial. The foul smell of laudanum filled David's nostrils, and Nicolas nearly gagged as Armand forced his mouth open. It would have done no good to close off Nicolas' breathing, since by nature neither of them required air. Nicolas jerked however, a thin whine escaping his throat as he swallowed, and David realized Armand was forcing him, mentally, to take the drug. It was a kind of rape David had not thought Armand would resort to, at least this early.

Why was the cardinal here? David had thought he was another hallucination, except he could smell the man's mortality. As Nicolas shook and blinked and choked, David saw Armand beckon to the man. 

"Nicolas, meet Cardinal La Foque," Armand said with a smile. 

"You are...beautiful," Cardinal La Foque whispered to Nicolas. "I will enjoy breaking you." He knelt and inched forward, tentatively, until he brought his neck within reach of Nicolas' fangs. Instinct took over from then, but it was Armand who pulled them apart and made the gash in Nicolas' neck, guiding the mortal's lips to the wound.

"The cardinal has studied the ancient arts of the Inquisitors, Nicolas," Armand said. "He has much to teach us, but he must be one of us if he is to do so, for how else can we trust him?" Nicolas gazed up at him miserably, and closed his eyes as Armand kissed his forehead.

The scene shifted, and this time Nicolas was spread-eagled upon a table, heavy iron manacles at his wrists and ankles. His side near his ribs was badly burned, and there was a clear puddle on the table near the wound. There was blood, too, dried and caked on the table, but the wounds that produced them must have healed. David was grateful Nicolas had spared him the sight of the torture itself.

"Ah good," Armand said, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, looking as immaculate as ever. "You are awake."

"You had us worried there," said La Foque, Nicolas' newest fledgling. "I did not know a mere brand would burst our bodies into flames. It is just your luck we had a bucket of water on hand, my father in darkness."

Nicolas gave something that was half a sob, half a laugh, and shook his head.

"What is it, Nicolas?" Armand asked. "You know I have to do this. You and I nearly came to fisticuffs over your latest set of plays. There is no way we can have four elephants stomping across the stage. I didn't know you would be so upset I would be forced to restrain you."

"Not that. Her handkerchief," Nicolas whispered, his throat hoarse, possibly from screaming, possibly from something else. "On your desk. J.T. She's still alive, isn't she?" He sounded clearer than last time, but perhaps that was only because of the thought of Justine.

"Denial will get you nowhere," Armand replied.

"Please," Nicolas begged, closing his eyes. "Make him stop. He is a man of the cloth, and you employ him to torture me?"

"Who are you talking about, Nicolas?" Armand asked in mock concern.

"Cardinal La Foque! If that is his real name! The man...my own fledgling, standing to your right, who nearly exploded me in flames moments ago, who has done things to my body I did not think anyone would ever survive!" Nicolas screamed at him, and Armand shushed him into stopping.

"Nicolas, it pains me to tell you this, but there is no one there. We are alone," Armand said. "Now do be cooperative. Every time you disobey I claim a night such as this, with you chained up, alone in the darkness. It is so nice of you to help me with my investigations. How do you think a double dose of laudanum will perform?" David looked away, but that meant looking at Cardinal La Foque, who was poring over a selection of shiny sharp things spread out on a table.

When Armand was done, Nicolas was barely coherent, having traveled beyond pain and into something only his mind could comprehend. Armand said, over the moaning, "Your records are immaculate, Your Grace. I must confess I am impressed with your work. It is so creative, I must keep some techniques for myself. And now you tell me you have tried all your little toys? Are you really out of ideas?"

After the nod that answered, he grabbed the Cardinal and shoved him neck first against Nicolas' fangs. In his drugged state, Nicolas barely noticed as he drank the life away from his second fledgling.


	4. The Hanged Woman and the Handed Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final set. Nicolas spirals downwards as Armand intensifies his attentions, and we discover what happened to his first fledgling. He makes a desperate appeal to Eleni, and David pleads for respite from his task.

"Cardinal La Foque was real," David said, as soon as he was out of it.

"What?" Nicolas asked, surprised. "I was so sure he wasn't..." He bit his lip. "At least, I hoped..."

"Please, Nicolas. Don't make me see any more," David said. "I can't. I can't do this for you. I'm not strong enough."

"You are one of the most powerful psychics I know. I have already spared you the worst that I am able to isolate. If you cannot help me, who can?" Nicolas asked. "I won't force you, but..." he shrugged. "You are in my mind." He did not have to add, what choice did David have?

"Armand changed you so much," David whispered sadly.

Nicolas fidgeted in his seat, and smiled a sad and bitter smile at David. "Last one. I promise."

 

"Shall we make fledglings of all of Paris then?" Nicolas screamed. They were on the floorboards of the stage, various cast members in huddled groups, frightened. In stage center, Nicolas and Armand. David swallowed. Nicolas was completely undone. Whatever had happened between Cardinal La Foque and now, David was glad he had not seen. His cravat was askew, his vest was done up wrong, his shoes and socks a disgrace as was his bloodied, inked and untucked shirt, and his hair was wild and long, his nervous, trembling hands continuously trying to straighten the bramble that consisted of his curls. "Sh-sh-shall we make everyone a vampire? Make them see what we could do! Why should we hide? Let us go out of doors, Armand, and bring them all to us! The peasants are braying for blood as it is! All together now! Miers agrees with me, and I'll make you see, Armand, oh great and wonderful coven master, lord and master of shit!"

He ducked Armand's swing, and the theatre members came forth to hold both of them away from each other. His laughter was terrible, coming out of that sullen mouth.

"Stop this, both of you!" Eleni demanded, running forward. "Nicolas, what has gotten into you? And Armand, what've you been doing?"

"Go on, Armand. Tell them about what you did to Justine. Tell them about Audrey and Victoire and Nino and Mei Xing and John and Guillaume," Nicolas said, and David wondered, with a sinking feeling, what Armand had done to them, and how many of them were real. "Oh, and DOMINIQUE! WHAT ABOUT HER! IS SHE STILL ALIVE? DID YOU NOT GIVE HER THAT MUCH!" he howled, letting Felix and two others hold him back. They needn't have bothered, however. He was much more of a threat to himself.

"They are all hallucinations, Nicolas. You are not well," Armand said calmly, but David could see the strain in the theatre members' faces as they tried to hold their coven master back. It appeared as if he permitted them to do so, rather than an actual display of strength. "I keep telling you this, and all you come up with are wild accusations."

"ENOUGH!" In one motion Nicolas threw off his captors. "You won't turn them against me!" he snarled, one finger jabbing the air. "Th-they know me! Theyyy know I'm not crazy!" These were hard words to believe, given Nicolas' current expression and dress. "I'm leaving!" He spat in Armand's face, and fled.

David ran alongside him, and was grateful that the others awaited Armand's instructions. It bought Nicolas some extra time as he burst through the doors and across the street, running blindly through the rain. He collapsed under a bridge by the quai, sobs racking his shoulders as he gathered himself. With the Revolution in force it was not safe to be in the streets, and so Nicolas found himself alone, shivering under a bridge in the middle of the night.

A sound made him jerk, and he froze when he saw Armand standing with his umbrella in the rain. The glint of glass in his hand brought Nicolas to his feet. Only a mad fool would have chosen to attack Armand then, but Nicolas flung himself at the vampire. They landed in the river, the current strong with the rain as it carried them downstream.

Nicolas struck his head against a grate, and in the ensuing panic Armand shoved the bottle down his throat, making sure he swallowed it, even with some sewer water mixed in. He pulled the both of them, dripping wet, out of the water and onto the bank of the river. Nicolas was a ball of tense pain, and he retched and retched and retched so hard that he coughed up blood specked with shards of glass that flashed in the lamplight. Armand had not broken his vial when he dosed Nicolas, though the vessel looked new, as if it had replaced another.

A cold fury punched David in the gut at what Armand had done, but he could not change a memory. He watched, helpless, as Armand picked Nicolas up and brought him back to the theatre. "He was trying to make a coachman," he said to Eleni. "It is fortunate that I found him in time. Are the others back yet?"

"No, but I shall send out a call for them to return," Eleni replied. She put a hand on Nicolas' clammy forehead. "He's gotten worse, hasn't he? If only we could help him."

"I am doing the best I can, Eleni," Armand said coldly, and strode past her with Nicolas in his arms. She turned away in sorrow, not noticing Nicki's hand, stretched out for her.

When he had shut the door and strapped Nicolas in, he turned and brought in a body that made Nicolas recoil despite the pain that trapped him.

"She was hanged just this evening," Armand said. "This should be interesting. How potent is our blood, even the weakest of our blood?"

"No," Nicolas gritted out, but the nausea and pain from the laudanum would not permit him to do anything but weep as Armand made the cut in his wrist and adhered the dead woman's lips to the wound. He moaned blindly, long lost in the laudanum, his world pitching so much David almost felt it, even from his objective perspective. The woman awoke, but if Nicolas gave any notice of it, David could not tell. Her hands went up to feel her broken neck, and she gave a scream that made Nicolas jerk, but did not wake him.

"You devil, you aristocrat, you monster--" she shrieked, her voice hoarse and low, struggling to sound from that broken throat. With a swift movement Armand brought the axe down upon her, and he did not stop until she was a mere collection of red in a tattered dress. David could not watch, but kept his eyes on Nicolas' dulled vision. He was trying to wake up, that much he could tell, but the laudanum was making it too difficult. David fiercely ignored the meaty sound of Armand's chops, and would not give anything in the world to see Armand's face right now.

"Armand?" Eleni's voice sounded through the door, and at this, Nicolas stirred.

"Eleni," he murmured as he tried to get up.

"Armand, what are you doing to Nicolas?" she asked, and knocked on the door.

"Trying to control him, I'm afraid," Armand called to her, as he tossed the axe into a chest and used the dress to bundle up the woman's remains. There was nothing left but a bloody stain on the floor. "He continues with his hallucinations. I hardly know what to do. Come in, the door is unlocked." At this, David started. The presumption, that no one would dare disturb Armand. How he must have loved the power he held.

"Oh Nicki," Eleni gasped, but the blood on the floor startled her. It was easy enough to tell, by smell, that it was not Armand's. "What did you do to him, Armand?" she demanded.

"You get ahead of yourself, madmoiselle," Armand said coldly, and she bowed a little even though he was almost a head shorter than she. "He's all tired out now. There's little chance of a threat to anyone but himself."

"I'm taking him to his flat. The one Lestat bought for him," she announced, as she undid the straps. She caught Nicolas as he collapsed in a tight rigid ball of agony. "I have talked with the others and they agree. It is best that you two are apart for now. You bring out such...awful things in each other." She ignored the stunned look on Armand's face, and carried Nicolas' limp body out of the room.

David almost stumbled when the world dropped out from beneath him and he was on hardwood floors again, in a finely furnished--but poorly maintained--flat. The doors to the balcony were open, the breeze blowing and making pages rustle through flickering candles, barely avoiding catching on fire.

Nicolas sat at the harpsichord, naked except for a pair of breeches, sheets of music puddled at his feet and his ink-stained fingers ghosting over the keys but never pressing to make a single sound. David walked around the instrument to get a better view. Nicolas was writing furiously, his fingertips so close to the page they smudged nearly every line.

There was a creak downstairs, and footsteps climbing up to the second floor. Nicolas froze, and when he looked up David saw that the light in his eyes had flared up again, but it was twisted and furious, something much more familiar to him when he encountered Nicolas in his split personalities. Was this when he was born? He stood up, his body hard, white, and gleaming in the candlelight, tense and ready for a fight. Armand came through the doors, dressed in all black like some solemn cleric.

"You frightened Eleni away," Armand said in measured tones. "All she wanted was the new play."

"She was being annoying. She wasn't letting me hear the music," Nicolas said, and the fear was clear in his voice. "She kept talking, she kept asking me if I was all right, she wanted to know if I wanted anything, she wanted to help. She didn't understand."

"I know," Armand said, his hands up placatingly even as Nicolas backed away from his approach. His legs hit the harpsichord and the notes sounded discordant even to David's ears. Perhaps it had not been tuned, not since Nicolas was a mortal nearly a decade ago, by this reckoning.

"I'm so tired, Armand," Nicolas finally said, as Armand reached him and put his hand at both sides of his waist, close enough to kiss.

"I have been waiting a long time now, for you to come back to me," Armand told him. Nicolas' head was bowed, his eyes closed, the candlelight making his eyelashes glow. David thought this was a strange kind of intimacy they shared, and wondered what had happened to them in the intervening time.

"How could I ever escape you?" Nicolas asked, and he almost sounded normal. It seemed to David as if all he had heard in these past few memories were the rants and desperate moans of someone well on the road to madness, yet here Nicolas seemed almost crystal clear. And he stiffened when Armand kissed the side of his face. He returned those soft kisses as Armand nuzzled his neck and caressed his shoulder, his arm, coming to circle the delicate skin at his wrist.

When Armand moved to grab the pages, Nicolas' hand shot out and gripped his wrist tightly. His other hand came up and shoved Armand away from him with so much force Armand landed a few feet from him on the floor. The fire had returned in his eyes, and with them a hatred that David had seen only few times before.

"What do I have to do to get rid of you?" Nicolas snarled, his expression terrible and dark as he launched himself at Armand. The blow caught the coven master on the chin and knocked his skull back against the floorboards with a crack.

"Is this our dark genius?" Armand spat at him scornfully, and bringing his knees up and kicking Nicolas away. He stood up and kicked Nicolas in the side, but the violinist grabbed his other leg and shoved him back down to the floor.

"You come into my house and you take from me?" Nicolas demanded as he slammed Armand's face into the wood. The smell of blood filled the air--he had broken Armand's nose. Nicolas bent down and wrenched a kiss from him. Armand bucked and threw Nicolas off of him, reversing their positions and grabbing a fistful of his hair, pulling upwards and lifting Nicolas' head, forcing the weaker vampire into a painful arch. He claimed a kiss in turn, all searing heat and biting.

"You are mine, and there is nothing of yours that I may not take as I wish," Armand hissed, his nose already healed, and sank his fangs cruelly into Nicolas' craned neck. He only got a few mouthfuls however, because Nicolas shoved at him with all his might, grabbing him by the neck with bruising force and tearing his cravat off, sending the buttons of his coat flying with a clatter across the wood. He bit deep into Armand's shoulder, hard enough to make the vampire sag with shock and anger before he in turn was thrown off. He'd gotten his bearings with a draught of Armand's blood, however, and leapt to his feet.

"You dare?!" Armand demanded. "No one has done that in more than two hundred years, and you dare, a mad fledgling with no idea of his limits?" He drove Nicolas against the wall and drank from him again, as if that would undo what Nicolas had dared to. The fledgling was not about to be outdone however, and even as Armand drained him he landed punch after punch in Armand's gut, making him spill Nicolas' precious blood down his neck whenever one blow hit too hard. As the blows grew weaker, the bruises no longer forming against Armand's skin, he stopped the brutal draining and took a moment to look at Nicolas.

The violinist was still angry, but that was possibly the only thing lending him strength now as he stood shakily on his feet before him. He grinned, and drew his fist back, but it never connected. It took but one slap to the face to knock him to the floor. He brought himself up to his elbows, and to David's surprise, smiled predatorily at Armand.

"Come on then, if you must," Nicolas seethed as he tried to get his breath back. To David's surprise, he caught the violin as it was thrown at him, and started playing almost involuntarily. Armand was on him in seconds, making short work of his breeches. It was not hard to wriggle out of his own clothing, to thrust unforgivingly into Nicolas' body with a single, shared cry even as David looked on in disbelief.

He couldn't bring himself to look away. Nicolas kept playing, a whirling riot of sounds David hadn't known a violin could produce, but when Armand began to move, he abruptly choked at the feeling, cutting off the violin and dropping it on the floor. He whimpered and writhed beneath him, clutching Armand as if he would never let go.

Nicolas' nails dug deep gouges into Armand's back, clawing at Armand's chest with every thrust. Armand in his turn was not kind either, for it must have hurt with no preparation, no warning, no tenderness in the way he used Nicolas' body through the blows. David couldn't understand. As their cries grew more desperate and they worked their way towards completion, rivulets of blood ran down both their bodies from the scratches and cuts, bruises and bites. Finally Armand sank his fangs once more into Nicolas' neck and the violinist screamed, their bodies going rigid together.

Armand slumped, both limp and drowsy, and had it been any other situation David would have been powerfully aroused to see them lying together in the light of the candles, naked and slick with sweat and blood. Nicolas kissed his neck again, his eyebrows, his forehead, and held him close.

"Thank you," Armand murmured as he...cuddled against Nicolas. The violinist smiled at him indulgently, and David thought then that he would never figure them out.

"Please tell me," Nicolas whispered. "Please, Armand. Is Dominique alive?"

"I got rid of her. I took each digit, and each limb, one by one, but without both her head and her heart she could not live. I don't know why, but now we know how far we may be preserved. The heart and the brain," Armand murmured against Nicolas' skin. "Why would you choose a poor mortal madwoman for your fledgling? Hmm? When you have me?"

"S-so she's dead?" Nicolas asked, his voice cracking.

"I burned her in the morning. It seemed more merciful. You see, we can change. Remember that I was kinder to her than I was to Justine," Armand replied, and pulled Nicolas closer to himself. He closed his eyes. They lay there for a long time like that, Armand asleep, Nicolas staring at the ceiling in thought.

After a while Nicolas rose and went to the balcony. There, he bit back deep sobs he could barely contain, his body shaking with grief. David wondered what he thought of now, if it was his fledglings he mourned, or his sorry state, or his entire life. Suddenly, he stopped his silent agonies. His head twisted back as if guided by a string, and almost drunkenly, he snatched the violin and the bow, and jumped down into the streets, naked as the day he was born.

David followed him to what seemed like a large square in the city, where Nicolas was causing quite a commotion.

"A savage, you say? Can a savage walk amongst you, impersonate the very lot of you whining, cowardly peasants?" he demanded of a challenger. "Why do you not have the heads of anyone who stands in your way? Why not march on the palace itself, demand the heads of those we once called nobles, our lords, our lieges? Our Sun King Indeed! I reject his light! I reject his glory! I cast off the clothes they have given us, the coin of the realm! I only keep what is in my own head, made with my own hands!" He leapt to the topmost point of the central fountain, swifter and more steadily than mortals could have, and set his bow upon the strings to play furiously. The notes that came out were strikingly beautiful compared to his wild and rough words, and most importantly they were free. And when Nicolas finally released the bow from the strings he held them high above his head, and the music seemed to continue in the minds of everyone who had heard and seen this madman laugh and laugh and play that sound that kept following their thoughts.

"I SHALL MAKE YOU ALL! COME TO THE THEATRE DES VAMPIRES AND SEE. I WILL MAKE YOU, ALL OF YOU, AND THEN WE SHALL SEE HOW LONG HE LASTS, HOW MANY HE CAN HIDE AWAY IN HIS SECRET CELLARS!" Nicolas cried at the top of his lungs, making many cover their ears at the loudness of his voice. He grabbed one of them, ripping away at his throat and drinking from the font that issued forth. The mortals around him screamed in terror, but he resumed playing his instrument while the water in the fountain beneath him churned red with blood.

"That's enough," came the whisper. It seemed to have no source, but Nicolas scowled as the mortals instantly stopped hearing the music woven into their heads that would have driven them mad. They looked at amazement at the central figure who stood in the sudden silence. "Come here."

Nicolas set his violin upon his shoulder once more, but a blur knocked him and the instrument to the ground. He bit and fought and scratched, clawing for his instrument, but someone secreted it into a dark velvet bag and disappeared. Almost the entire Theatre was here. Armand must have gone back and told them, recruited them to collect.

A silver-haired boy--Laurent, thought David--leapt up onto the fountain as two others wrestled Nicolas to the ground. "We offer prime entertainment, the newest in art and tales. You just saw our notable playwright give the advertisement of his life, and I know some of the ladies enjoyed his announcement!" Laurent said with a grin, covering up Nicki's rant. "Monsieur de Lenfent can be very dedicated, if you know what I mean, and what better way to see than to come to the Theatre des Vampires? Our new show opens next week, and we hope to see you all! Vive la Revoluci√≥n!" As he began his steady patter, they threw a bag over Nicolas' head and wrapped him in a thick cloak before tossing him into the waiting coach. David saw Armand's face before he shut the door and the coach moved on. David jumped onto the side of the coach and looked inside.

The bag over Nicolas' head seemed to have subdued him, perhaps a reminder of Les Innocents. He was silent and still for the coach ride, though he struggled as soon as they removed him into the catacombs.

The darkness was almost absolute, and David realised this was because Nicolas could not see with his head inside the bag. Images faded into view as Nicolas associated them with sounds, but dwindled when he heard no more. They returned him to the chair, this time in a deeper part of the catacombs, to prevent his escape. No doubt Armand had told them another story, although the truth of it would probably elicit the same result. David found he could not begrudge them their caution--regardless of the cause, Nicolas had endangered them all tonight.

When the bag was removed he looked around him, dazed and disoriented by the concerned and fearful faces before him. His hands twisted and twisted and twisted against the straps, but he was so weakened by his bout with Armand he might have been a mortal. He bowed his head in defeat.

"Oh Nicolas," Eleni said softly.

At that, his head snapped up so suddenly David thought he heard a crack. All of a sudden his eyes were blazing.

"Don't Oh Nicolas me," he seethed. "I was PROVOKED!" Some of the coven shielded their sensitive hearing with their hands, but others merely shook their heads. Nicolas glared, but when he saw Armand all the energy went out of him. "And I cannot even tell you why."

"You have committed a serious crime tonight, Nicolas," Armand said gravely, looking for all the world like a concerned employer, a patron who has let his servant go on too long a leash. "You have exposed yourself to the world. You have almost endangered this entire coven of vampires who lives so tenuously in this city. I keep our numbers low, the vagrants out, and here I find one of our own gallivanting as if he were on his nighttime promenade, waiting to bestow the Dark Gift to every single extravagant mortal he can find. Eleni?"

"Please, Nicolas," she entreated, approaching him, afraid he would bite, or worse. He said nothing but merely glared at Armand. With hesitant, lightning quick movements she freed his hands, but not his legs or the belt around his waist. The cloak lent him some modesty by puddling over his waist and down on the ground, and she tied it more firmly about him, like a dark toga. "Tell us what you need. Tell us what would make it better."

His eyes flicked from her back to Armand, and they awaited the inevitable outburst. Much to their surprise, he licked his parched lips and said, quite levelly, "my violin."

As much as his fingers were constantly fingering out notes, they stilled when the gleaming instrument was pulled from its bag. He reached out woodenly for it, but his movements melted instantly as he drew the bow across the strings for so long the theatre members thought their hearts would break. It sounded like two violins playing, not one, and the notes paired themselves, drawing out the sorrow and desperation the musician felt. Each leap of the bow was tortuous, and the vampires resisted the natural urge to dance to it, to pantomime and perform as they had at first, before things had deteriorated so badly with their composer and playwright. Some of them fell to their knees, hands over their ears.

"Stop," Armand said, softly at first, because no doubt the music stirred him as well. But the music continued, in the room and in their heads as well, adding and growing and bursting with the fierceness of his pain and his anger. As Nicolas' movements became more frantic, the music escalated in speed and complexity. It whirled around the room like a physical creature, yet swelling in their minds as well. David had never heard anything like it coming from Nicolas before. It pained him just to listen to it, and for the first time David did not wish to hear him play.

Blood tears rolled down Nicolas' cheeks even as he played, and a few of the vampires fled, unable to bear the terrifying beauty of music any longer.

"Nicolas, stop this!" Armand commanded, but the music only grew and grew and continued its spell around them, coaxing them to join in his agony. Finally Armand struck the instrument from Nicolas' hands and forced his wrists down onto the arms of the chair. "You are not to play again until you gain back what inkling of sense you still have! Laurent, Felix, take it away. I don't care what happens--"

"NO!" Nicolas screamed, and in a lucky moment clocked Armand around the jaw. "Give it back! Give it back, I need it! I need her! No matter the flesh and filth and blood and pain around me if I can have her I can take--"

"You create nothing but this...this miasma of darkness around us. What is left in you but sullenness and this terrible music?"

"I can't..." Nicolas closed his eyes, as if he could squeeze the tears away. He couldn't find the words, David realised, not without the violin in his hands. "Miasma..." And then the laughter found him, dark and terrible and aching, and Nicolas laughed and laughed and laughed even as tears rolled down his face.

"Bring it upstairs," Armand said.

"No!"

"You would bring mortals down upon this theatre? You would expose us all? I cannot risk that, and if the violin gives life to this madness then I shall take it away!" Armand declared.

"You think you are master of us all?" Nicolas screamed at him, only half coherent. "You think your power over them from Les Innocents is enough? Well I know you, Armand, and I have seen you when you are not the coven master. I could bring you down with mere words! I could--" He choked at Armand's hand on his throat, and his hands scrabbled in their restraints.

"You think you can, do you?" Armand asked, and Eleni gave a start at the physical force Armand added with those words. "You think you know?"

"I make you angry. I make you alive. You need me," Nicolas hissed, so quietly only Armand could have heard it, and would have continued had not Armand cut off all his breath.

"Armand, stop this now!" Eleni was the only other one left. Insistently, firmly, she pushed Armand away with as much strength as she could. Her knuckles were turning white against his chest. "You're only making him worse! Let me try."

"If you so much as bring him his violin, or a single mortal, Eleni, I shall have both your necks," Armand said. He gave Nicolas a calculating look, and left in silence.

"Will you let me out of this?" Nicolas asked her, once Armand had gone. "I won't hurt anyone, I promise." He gave her his most angelic smile, and she relented, releasing him fully. He sprang to his feet, and realising how he startled her, he took her gently by the hands and looked at her in earnest. "Do you trust me, Eleni?"

Eleni looked startled by the change in his tone. He almost sounded like his old self. "Nicolas, what do you--"

"Please. I don't know how much longer I can stay like this."

"You mean you're really--"

"Mad? Wouldn't you be? Please, do you trust me? Have I ever tried to harm you?"

"Nicolas, what are you saying?"

"I am losing my sanity, in fits and starts, and soon, perhaps completely. When the time comes, can I count on you?" He pressed her hands together to emphasize his point. "It will get worse. We may have to allow him to run his course. Even if I seem mad beyond recompense, when I am asking for death, can I count on you to hide me away from Armand? No matter what he tells you about me?"

"Nicki--"

"Can I?" The twitching of his fingers seemed to warn her, and she nodded quickly, afraid of what would happen if she refused. "Thank you. Now if you'll excuse me..." He turned away from her and sat down in a corner, exhausted. "I feel sick."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"You might. Leave me be. It's better you're not here," Nicolas said wearily, putting his bare arms over his head. The door opened and Armand strode back in with a white thing in his hands. "What is that?"

"Oh good, you're calm. That will make this so much easier," he said, as he approached Nicolas. It looked like a jacket, only it had buckles in the back, and the sleeves were far too long. Nicolas seemed to guess what was going to happen, because he shoved himself up further against the wall. "Give me your arms."

"No," Nicolas said with a fervent shake of his head. The noise seemed to build in his throat first, and Eleni backed away at the sound. The desperate noises he was making made the fear on his face all the worse, but he did not resist when Armand grabbed one hand and shoved it through a sleeve, then the other, finally buckling the ends behind Nicolas' back so that he could not extricate himself. He tried, of course, and thrashed and thrashed, his hands clawing and twisting inside the sleeves. "What is this?" he asked, and jerked again. He lost his balance and fell against the floor, bruising his cheek as he continued to twist, to find his way out of his hands that were suddenly in the wrong place. "ARmANd? WhAT is thIS DeviLRy?" It sounded like a different person talking, and as he grew more frantic, his voice became more distorted with each thrash against the rough stones.

"It is a new invention," Armand said, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed down impassively at the figure before him. "They are calling it a strait jacket. They have begun to pioneer its use in all the insane asylums, and with Dominique's contacts I was able to gain ahold of one."

"I cAN't fEel mY haNDs," Nicolas said, panicking. "I CaN'T play iF I cAn'T feel my HANds!" He twisted again, grinding his side against the ground as if doing that would free his hands. He banged his head against the stones, heedless of the blood that poured out from the cuts in his forehead. "What. Can. I. How. My hands? Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!"

"You've only made him worse!" Eleni cried, afraid to go near Nicolas yet desperate to stop him.

"Out!" Armand said, one imperious finger pointing to the door. She took one look at the both of them and fled, slamming the door behind her. He crouched down beside Nicolas and grabbed him by the hair, halting his self-abuse. "You cannot pound it out of your head, Nicolas. The sounds I hear in your mind aren't really there. Just listen to me. That's all that matters, my voice."

Please, thought David, please make him better, give me something redeeming to think of you.

"EvERYthiNG is WroNG," Nicolas whimpered, wincing as he used his hair to pull himself upright. "FIx iT." He shook his head but he could not make Armand let go of his hair.

"I cannot do that," Armand said. Once Nicolas sat down, Armand smoothed his hair away from his face and tidied it somewhat. "Tsk. Look at you." Gently, he licked the rivers of blood running down Nicki's face. His other hand snaked down past the folds of the toga to grip him below, making Nicolas freeze, then moan, his face flushing. His hand stroked back and forth, ignoring the shake of Nicki's head and the attempts to back away like a startled horse.

"No no no no, please please let go please," Nicolas babbled, his eyes shut tight. Armand let go of Nicki's hair but picked him up and set him on the desk, straitjacket and all. He gripped Nicki's ankles and pushed them back so that the black toga fell away, Nicki's lower half wanton and exposed to him. He was hard from Armand's touch, but he shivered as he kept shaking his head, tears streaming down his cheeks. "You are quite beautiful. Even in such a ruin."

David looked away, unable to stomach much more of this. How much of it was real? How much of it had Nicolas designed to show him? He did not want to believe Armand capable of such depravity. And as the desperate keening noises came forth behind him, he sat down and shoved his hands over his ears. Where was the Handed Girl in all this? Had Nicolas not isolated his memories as discreetly? Or had he simply preferred not to re-examine these before handing them over to David?

"i could make the stars fall down from the sky and all you would have to do is stop doing these things to me leave the music alone leave me to the music I know every coin with only more than two sides other side of the sky is nothing you can ever seek to have your own world so what does it matter if the blue eyed one will never never EVER return no matter what you do to me the girl writes what she thinks he wants to hear no matter what unless she cannot help bending the truth so much it slips out of her tongue to our patron our great lord coin of the realm--" and then Nicolas screamed. David whirled around to see Armand rocking his hips into Nicolas', his unforgiving fangs in Nicolas' neck. No wonder he feared the straitjacket so much. He grew paler and paler as Armand drained him further, and Armand went rigid even as he drank, his skin blooming in color as he emptied himself into Nicolas with a few short sharp thrusts.

Armand then redid his breeches, and pulled out an all too familiar glass vial. Nicolas was barely even conscious for it, but he drank anyway, because the draining left him beyond thirst, beyond comment or thought, and at least the laudanum was something. David came over hesitantly. The whites of Nicolas' eyes were showing, and though his eyelids fluttered, it was not until Armand slapped him again that he groaned, blinking and snarling at whoever was inflicting this new annoyance, like an animal in so much pain it was beyond thought, beyond recognizing who was friend or foe or master.

"You'll stay here until you know better," Armand said. "You are mine. You cannot get away."

"My violin I want my violin! Miasma! I just want my violin you can take me but you cannot deny me my violin!" Nicolas said in a brief moment of what might be called clarity.

"You want your precious violin?" Armand asked, furious, and Nicolas shrank away, struggled to get away as Armand unbuckled him and tore the straitjacket off him. He still had Nicolas pinned against the desk however, one knee between his legs.

"Yes, I want it, I want her, just her," Nicolas said, his world spinning, his memory making David's vision spin too. The laudanum was taking effect, and Nicolas was reeling, his head lolling from side to side as he tried to gain focus.

"Why can't you forget her? I'm here, Nicolas, look at me!" Armand said, and pinned Nicolas' wrists to the wood with one hand. "Look at me! Why isn't this enough? Why must you keep playing that infernal instrument?"

"Not yours! NOt YoURs! I will show you all! The violin is everything! You can't have me if I have the music, if I keep playing in my hands, the notes resting in my fingers and there listening for my notes living in my fingers without remorse said the little bow gliding across his the first fingers will always remember as long as the fingers remember they are here and they make the music you cannot refuse..." And so on. His hands clenched into claws and he snarled when Armand slammed them again, painfully, against the wood. Armand opened a desk drawer, slid aside a panel, and brought out a butcher's knife. Nicolas growled at this too, and fought against him.

Armand brought the knife down on his wrists. His eyes widened in shock, and his stream of noises stopped. His hands came away in Armand's hands, finally resting from their ceaseless twitching. There was so little blood left in Nicolas after the draining that very little blood spurted across the wood and upon them both. Nicolas went still, his eyes blank as he looked down and realized he could no longer feel his fingers because they simply were not there.

"I will keep these until you are ready to behave like a civilized vampire again," Armand said as he moved off Nicolas, taking his grotesque trophies with him. He looked off to the side, and beckoned. A young woman came in, a vampire with golden hair that was matted with blood. She walked in a kind of a crouch, and her terror of Armand was only conquered by her need to serve him. A thin trail of blood dripped from her mouth. She was constantly biting and chewing on her lip. Her gaze was only on Armand as she took the hands from him. She seemed about to speak, but then held the hands close to her bosom, as if they were old friends. Nicolas looked over to her without recognition, for the chopping of the hands was his final snapping point. He stared back at the bloody stumps where his wrists once were, and began to wail.

Curious, David came around to look at this new creature as she fussed over the hands, kissing their fingertips and making them caress her face as Nicolas watched.

"No," David whispered, backing away. So this was the Handed Girl. Justine Tatin. Twisted so horribly by Armand's ministrations, and still alive when Nicolas had long thought her dead and mercifully beyond the pain that Armand could inflict. Yet here she was, some secret slave to his ambitions, her mind as far gone as her maker's, unknowingly serving in the breaking of Nicolas de Lenfent.

"You can take them away now," Armand said. He pulled Nicolas into a sitting position, but Nicolas lay back again, his eyes unseeing. His lips moved, the sound unrelenting, "my hands," over and over again. It was the beginning of the end.

 


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David confronts Armand.

David was grateful for the merciful, clean whiteness that shuttered down around him.

"Those were the last ones I wasn't sure about," Nicolas said, not looking up from his clipboard. "So. The Hanged Woman and the Handed Girl?" When David did not reply, he looked up. "David! Are you all right?" He rushed to the stricken vampire in concern. "What happened?"

"Do you not know?" David asked him after a moment's pause. "How can you live with these memories and still say you do not want Armand executed for his crimes?"

Nicolas paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. "You do not know him as well. You would not understand," he began.

"Make me understand," David pleaded, yet uncertain of what he was getting himself into.

"I'm not sure if--" Nicolas hesitated. He glanced down at the clipboard, driven by a more pressing need than his current conversation.

"They were real. Both of them. Though God help me I wish they weren't," David said to him, putting his head in his hands as Nicolas ticked off their checkboxes. Should he tell Nicolas about Justine? What would that resolve?

"I am sorry for putting you through this, David. I can see now that was a mistake. I was being cruel," Nicolas said. "I hope one day you can forgive me for it." He spread his arms and very gently, let go of David's mind.

They were sitting on the cold damp asphalt in the alleyway, Nicolas slumped against David. He hadn't even drained him, but merely taken that first bite to strengthen their psychic link. The cold was seeping into his bones, and David shuddered for a moment more. He looked down when Nicolas stirred, uncertain of how he ought to feel.

"Mmm," Nicolas mumbled, pushing himself upright. "I never meant to hurt you, I just...you were right."

"What do you mean?" David asked, once he had found his voice. It was hard to believe Nicolas had come so far. He almost wouldn't have expected him to last this long.

"Armand's changed me so much," Nicolas said. He paused, looking off for a second, then pulled David to his feet. "Perhaps we deserve each other."

"No!" David said, and arrested himself when Nicolas drew back, startled. He had never heard the other raise his voice like this before. "Whatever you did, you did not deserve what Armand has done to you. No one does, not even him."

Nicolas was quiet as he gazed levelly at David. "You don't have to feel sorry for me. You are too good for that. I owe you an inconceivably large favor."

"Are you going to show me why you accept this from Armand?" David asked, almost afraid Nicolas would say yes.

"I was going to show you anyway," Nicolas answered. "Surely that cannot be your boon. Come, we should get out of the cold. Let's go home and I can show you, or at least try. It will be difficult for me. I have not had cause to think of it in a long time."

David was silent as they walked home. His thoughts churned in his mind and would not release him. He could not imagine the depths of darkness into which Nicolas had sunk, or how far Armand could really take things. He had not thought of what it would mean to have one's hands taken away in such a way as Eleni had said. "Taken away." Was that what Armand had told them? Had any of them dared to come look?

By the time they reached the front door, Nicolas was fussing over his clothing. "I can't believe I did it again. You would think that after two hundred years I would learn to be consistent," he muttered, and again David marveled at his mere annoyance over what had been outright carnage. Was he entirely aware of what he did? "Not that I really have any control, mind. Armand told me once, what it was like. And I wondered why I'd broken his jaw and he my ribs when he tried to stop me." He looked over to David, and something in his expression must have shown his thoughts, because Nicolas smiled kindly, and put a hand on his shoulder. "You are young yet. I know you are old, older than we, the eternally young, can know, but you are indeed young in our ways. How can we survive so long if we do not learn to forgive one another?"

"I suppose you're right," David conceded, and then thought of something. "There is a favor I have, Nicolas. I wanted to ask you a question, and I hope that you'll explain to me your answer."

"Yes, of course, though answering a question isn't much of a favor," Nicolas said, as he opened the door. The light and warmth of the townhouse welcomed them, and he gave a sigh of relief.

"Can you tell me how--" David began, when Lestat appeared in the hall.

"Nicki!" Lestat gasped, and grasped him in his arms. "What happened to you? Who did this?"

"We went hunting and Nicolas got carried away," David explained wearily.

"Nicki," Lestat said, completely failing to try to sound as if he weren't chiding Nicolas.

"I'm sorry, all right? I don't know what came over me," Nicolas said. "That's the problem, isn't it?" He eased himself out of Lestat's grasp. "I'll go get cleaned up."

"There's a box, by the way, on your desk," Lestat said. "It is addressed to a Monsieur de Lenfent, Complete Flake."

"You are the most obvious man in the world and I am not listening to you," Nicolas retorted as he went to his room, flinging off his shirt as he did so.

"What the hell happened, David?" Lestat demanded once Nicolas had shut the door. "He can't go hunting yet. Have you seen him when he goes hunting?"

"I have now," David said, but he was not about to be lectured by his maker. "And I have had a hell of a night so if you'll please excuse me, I notice you didn't say a thing about all the blood on *my* shirt."

"You're not--" Lestat stopped, and hissed, "You're not a recovering mental patient who tries to hurt himself every time I'm not watching!"

"He took his dose without a fuss, and he was fairly reasonable until that moment. But then the hunger took him and he just lost control," David said. "Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to see how he was. You can't keep him locked up, Lestat. He's not a pet or a child." He thought it might not be wise to mention that Nicolas could probably hear Lestat no matter how much he whispered.

"He cannot take care of himself! If he can't do that, if he can't make basic decisions, I am not about to let him go out in the street to murder people for his dinner," Lestat said.

"You are showing a remarkable need to control him, Lestat. Might I suggest that is not the wisest course of action given what Armand has done in the past?" David said, and stepped past Lestat's astonished face.

"I'm surprised at you, David," Lestat said sadly. "This doesn't sound like you."

"I've learned more about Armand tonight than I ever would have chosen to imagine," David told him wearily. "I'm going up to check on Nicolas. Please excuse me." He left before Lestat could splutter at him any more.

The door to Nicolas' room was open. Nicolas sat on the bed, head in his hands. The bloodied shirt lay discarded in a wastebasket, and nothing seemed to have been torn up. So far so good. David looked to the desk, but the package had not been opened.

"Nicolas?" David asked, and came in when the vampire looked up. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Nicki answered, patting the bed beside him to offer David a seat. "Just a bit tired. You have been very patient with me. I wish I could offer you a glass of wine or something, in some showing of camaraderie and bonding. Instead all I've been is an unruly patient."

"You're not a patient," David said immediately, uncomfortable with the idea that Nicolas could be so helpless again. "That is, not at all." He glanced away, and saw the package. "You haven't opened your package yet."

"It's from Paris," Nicolas murmured, looking at the label, but did not elaborate. He rose and slit the package open with a fingernail. Behind him, Lestat had come to the doorway and took up guard, watching. Warily, Nicolas peeled back layers of plastic wrap and paper. When he got to the shining black case he leapt back as if burned. Gingerly, he stroked one long finger along the case, grazing the clasp. Then he whirled around, and the expression on his face made David let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Nicolas was smiling the smile of a man afraid his happiness would be all too fleeting.

Lestat was at his side at once.

"So...you trust me with this?" Nicolas asked in a whisper. Lestat grinned, took Nicki's hand, and set it on one of the clasps. The click was audible, and David thought he heard a hitch in Nicki's breath as he opened the other clasp and finally swung back the lid.

The violin gleamed, and David almost felt like the brightness of the electric lights around them cheapened it. Candlelight made everything so mysterious.

"It's beautiful," Nicolas croaked, as Lestat held him from behind and nuzzled his neck and shoulders. "Thank you." Nicki's hands trembled as they caressed the instrument. It had been months. He drew back, massaging his hands as if they hurt. "I can..." Lestat nodded into his neck. Nicolas lifted the instrument to his shoulders, and the sound that came out of it made Lestat's knees sag for a moment, and David's heart leap. It was beautiful. It was glorious, and light, and soaring, with none of the darkness they had heard before. Nicolas was so delighted with his reunion that his music was devoid of trouble, and the happiness blossomed in the hearts of all who heard it.

Lestat held Nicolas even tighter, face buried in his neck as he played, even swaying a little with the music. The sight of it disturbed David, for it reminded him too much of the night in Nicki's flat with Armand, Nicolas playing, lost in the solace of the music, as someone else touched him and drew on the fruits of that mind. Without knowing it, David had his hand on Lestat's chest, the other against Nicolas' back. They were both staring at him incredulously.

"David?!" Lestat asked, unable to imagine why his fledgling would push them apart. Then he grinned. "If you were that jealous, you only had to say."

"No! It's not that!" David snapped, making Lestat draw back his conciliatory and forgiving hand. "Nicolas was playing, he was--" David stopped at the touch of Nicki's hand on his shoulder. He turned, and saw the understanding on his face.

"I know, David. But it is all right. This is Lestat, remember?" Nicolas said. His lips were set in a thin line, and for once David felt like a child, a madman, before these two.

"Nick, what has happened? What have you said to him?" Lestat asked.

"Something I oughtn't have. I am sorry, David. I was being selfish," Nicki told him, truly looking regretful. "I wanted help figuring out what parts of my past were hallucinations. I did not think seeing my memories would traumatize you so deeply."

"Why shouldn't it? The things he's done to you! I can't believe you walk around, as you are now, that you let Lestat, that you let anyone touch you at all, much less forgive Armand for what he's done," David said heatedly. "How can you say you love him?"

"It is all right for you to be angry with me, for forcing you to see it. You did not ask for it, and I should have told you what to expect," Nicolas said patiently, and David couldn't fathom why he was the one who needed reasoning with.

"I'm just...I want there to be justice," David said finally, his hands in fists of frustration at his side.

"What kind of justice can there be for us?" Nicolas asked sadly.

"How can you say you love him? How can you forgive him? I have seen you kiss and embrace each other like old friends," David protested. "How can you love him?"

"For the same reason Lestat has never asked for justice against Louis, who once murdered him twice over," Nicolas said quickly and quietly, as if that would prevent Lestat from hearing. "Did you not think of that, David?"

"I---" David did not know what to say. He looked between the two of them, distraught.

"I am truly sorry. I asked too much of you, pushed too much onto you," Nicolas said. "It wasn't fair. I am ashamed of myself."

"Nicolas, no, not ever," David protested.

"What did you want to ask me?" Nicolas said in curiosity, trying to change the subject. He polished the violin and set it back into the case, then closed the lid with two satisfying clicks.

"What became of Justine?" David blurted out, and regretted it the instant he saw Nicolas freeze. The violinist tried to look casual, however, and he even slung an arm around Lestat's shoulders, who looked at him with equal concern.

"She died," Nicolas told him quite simply. He had gone very very still.

"But how?" David persisted, wishing he did not want to know.

"David," Lestat warned, his arm winding around Nicolas' waist and holding him tightly.

"I asked. Nicki owes me a favor, and I want to know exactly what happened," David said, fearing that the answer would be what he had expected.

Nicolas' entire body was trembling, and his eyes were shut, his face turned away as if he were doing his utmost to hold himself together. "Armand told me that he gave her to the sun in a small well while I was under the laudanum. That was before Nino. He was still holding her for ransom then, making sure I wrote the plays. After Nino I saw that he was never going to stop."

"Did you ever see her ashes? Did you make sure he scattered them? Or did you just believe Armand's words? He kept you drugged all that time, so you couldn't go looking, didn't he? What if he lied?" David asked, feeling unusually cruel. He couldn't let this go, though. Armand had lied to Nicolas, so what if Justine was still alive? What if they could fix some part of this?

"No," Nicolas hissed, his eyes wide with shock at David's words. "What is it that you know? Tell me, what do you know? What did you see?!"

"David, stop this right now!" Lestat warned him again. "Don't get him started with this paranoid talk!"

"What if Armand only told you she was dead, as another way to break you? What if she was still alive, all this time? What if he had kept her for his own ends?" David asked quickly, wanting to reach out to Nicolas. Lestat was holding him tightly though, since his entire body was trembling.

"No! No, anything but that! Better that she burned!" Nicolas cried. "No, I cannot listen to this. I cannot listen to you!"

"Just think of it, Nicolas. What if he lied about that too? What else did he lie about? What if she's out there wondering if you ever made it?" David asked.

"Shut up shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP SHUT UP!" Nicolas screamed at him at last, fighting against Lestat to get away.

"David, that is enough! Get out of here!" Lestat yelled at him, and David didn't need to be told twice. He left the room, leaving Lestat to hold the shaking vampire, wondering if he was really going to do what he planned next.

He would have to find Armand.

Then they would have a long talk.

He would find out what really happened to Justine Tatin.

* * *

 

"Why don't you spare me the niceties and tell me why you are really here, David?" Armand asked, as David got off the boat to Night Island. "I am preoccupied."

"I wasn't going to give you much more than a 'Hello,' Armand," David replied, but his anger was quelled for now, tempered only because of his need to learn, to find out.

"And how is our patient?" inquired his host, as he led him through the glass towers and around a corner to an unmarked door. They entered the lift on their way to Armand's private apartments.

"He's not 'our patient.' He has nothing to do with you now," David said, unable to rein in his hostility. What he had seen was still fresh in his mind.

"I assume your discomfiture is because of something else he has told you?" Armand asked as he unlocked the door. It took some effort for David to walk past him, to turn his back on the elder. "I did not think he was mentally competent to tell you anything that even shadowed the truth."

"He has his lucid moments, and it is difficult for memories to lie," David replied. "I have walked in his mind and seen what he thought was real and what I can judge to be false. I cannot imagine what just punishment for you could be."

"Is that why you are here?" Armand asked, not even looking the slightest bit perturbed. He truly did seem preoccupied, as he sat down and gestured for David to do the same. "To mete out some punishment? Are you going to have Maharet execute me?"

"As much as it pains me to say this, I feel it would break Nicolas' heart were anything of the sort to happen to you," David said, telling himself he wasn't really gritting his teeth. "I'm here to ask you for a straight and truthful answer as to what happened to Justine Tatin."

Armand took a breath, and smiled. "I must confess I did not expect that from you. There are so many more useful and piercing questions you could have asked me, around which I may have stepped, but such an inquiry is quite simple. Would you like the long, involved answer or the short one?"

"The long involved answer. Everything. Including where she may be found, if she is still alive," David replied, but only just. "Where are you going?"

"I was not lying when I informed you I was busy," Armand said calmly. "I have my own responsibilities. Not all of us can wait hand and foot upon one mental patient." David decided to let that one pass, too curious as he followed Armand. The elder did not seem perturbed. "And there is no need to tail me like a private investigator. I am not fleeing from you, nor shall I disappear. A few minutes are all I require."

He disappeared behind a set of doors that led to the bedrooms. David could sense another vampire here. He entered the hallway and pondered whether or not to enter. There was arguing going on, but not from Armand. He wasn't letting himself be overheard, David realised, but then wondered why he could still sense the other vampire, with snippets of his side of the conversation filtering through.

/...don't give me...the one time...visit...ditch me...not being unreasonable...want...just some time...like hell...love.../ were all David could make out. It was Daniel Molloy, Armand's prodigal fledgling. He leapt back when the doors were flung open and Daniel rushed out angrily, tying his tie back on.

"Daniel, please! Please stay," Armand followed, calling after him. David had forgotten how vulnerable Daniel made his maker, especially now that he was no longer chained by his mortality.

"Why the hell should I?" Daniel whirled around, but came to an abrupt halt when he saw David in the hallway. "Oh. Hey. Um..." He looked sheepish, but his angry impatience did not dissipate. "How's it going? David, right?"

"Hello Daniel," David said, not quite ready for a domestic squabble. It rather upset his impression of Armand from the memory Nicolas had shown him, to see Armand here, pleading with his fledgling to remain. "How are you?" He glanced at Armand, but those eyes were shuttered again, with none of that plaintive sorrow David had just seen.

"I'm okay. I didn't know you were back in the States. Armand didn't tell me you were his guest," Daniel said, with a brief glare at his maker, but Armand had his public face on again, though Daniel did not remark upon it. "What's up? Here for a little vacation?"

"I just wanted to talk to Armand about some things," David said. He hesitated, but a flash of desperation on Armand's placid face made him reconsider revealing his true purpose. "Nicolas de Lenfent is not well, and I had hoped to get some background on him, in case anything had worked before." The brief moment of gratitude on Armand's face told David he had another favor coming from Armand.

"The Divine Violinist?" Daniel remarked. "I thought he had that art gallery in Switzerland. What happened?"

"We are not quite certain," David said. "He came back to New Orleans, and..." He looked to Armand for a moment, but decided he would not be responsible for destroying whatever illusions Daniel held about his maker. "I couldn't say. It might have been just after years of being fine, the stress was too great."

"That's a shame. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help," Daniel said.

"Thank you, Daniel," David said. "I don't know if a new face would help, but if Nicolas begins to feel crowded by our constant presence we may have to give you a call. You may prove refreshing."

"Hey, anything I can do. It's not like I don't have lifetimes ahead of me, right?" Daniel grinned. "Well, I guess I'll go...for a swim or something." He looked to Armand. "I'll see you guys later." He left with a wave, after which Armand visibly relaxed.

"Is there anything you need?" Armand asked, as close to thanking David as he could come. He took a chair in the sitting room, and gestured to David to take the one opposite.

"Tell me everything. What happened to Justine. What happened between you and Nicki," David said. "Why he thinks he loves you even after all this."

"Only thinks?" Armand inquired with a raised eyebrow. He had regained his composure, as if he had been nervously on his best behavior with his fledgling around and now could relax into the usual blankness in which he found himself, unreadable, unassailable. "We knew each other through some dark times, and after all we were both the abandoned of God, of Lestat, of so much."

"But you raped him in every way imaginable. You forced him to make fledglings for your experiments," David said. "If those were dark times for him, it was because you made them so."

"And he conveniently did not show you what he did with me? What we did to each other? The entire Theatre conspired to keep us apart, and did so for weeks on end, even risking my own wrath against them, because of what we would do to each other. Never mind the fledglings, or anything else you speak of," Armand said.

"There was in the beginning and always just the two of us. I knew I wanted him as soon as I had him pulled from his flat on the Ile de la Cite. There was a child of the Revolution if there ever was one, clinging to such rational ideals but unable to conduct himself in a way that could ever realize them. And then there was the music. You have heard him play, but I doubt he showed you what he could show that paltry little stage, what he could show me in the privacy of his dressing room. I observed him for hours on end. He was always composing with not even a whisper of acknowledgment to my presence. Our arrangement was formal then, I the coven master, he the composer and playwright of that little house. Nevertheless, we could all see, himself most of all, that he was steadily going mad, and would do so if not in five years, if not in twenty, then conceivably in a hundred if he lasted that long. The only certainty was that he would reach that point of complete mental breakdown, and he knew it as well as the rest of us. He was captured by the music, David, that much you ought to understand, having been in his mind. In the beginning, his episodes were brief and musically-triggered. He would have weeks on end where he did nothing but compose, unless we broke him out of it and took him with us to hunt in the city. The music he played then was at his peak of brilliance and so unlike anything he played after. When his condition worsened we had some recourse through Eleni, who patiently kept him company and talked to him even as he screamed and yelled."

"When did Justine come along?" David asked.

"Bravo, David, ever doggedly do you pursue this line of questioning. Doctor Justine Tatin was the result of one of Eleni's ideas. In her hopes to find a cure for Nicolas, for he was beloved of all of us at the Theatre, Eleni brought him on a good night to the College of Physicians in hopes of finding a concert of doctors who might deduce what was wrong with him. Never mind the alcoholism that had ravaged Nicolas when he was a mortal man, for that was an affliction too common in Paris in those days. It was there, of course, that Nicolas encountered Justin Tatin, a brilliant lecturer at the university who had queer ideas that the insane could be treated and cured, rather than sequestered away in bedlams, beyond the reach of society that they could neither harm nor beseech for aid. We did not think much of it when Nicolas spent more time outside of the theatre. Eleni said he was visiting a doctor, and so I was only mildly surprised to learn he had chosen Justine Tatin to be his first fledgling."

"I saw it all," David said testily. "You snatched her away the moment you could ensure that Nicolas was under your control again."

"There was no question that Nicolas was never the same again after Justine," Armand said. "He was too young to give that much blood, and I suspect such a rash decision was the true impetus for his mental unwinding."

"What, and not the laudanum and torture you inflicted on him afterwards?" David asked, incredulous.

Armand's gaze upon him was hard, his eyes shining. "As long as he had the music as a distraction, there was little in the way of accepting myself as his master. He had treated me with respect in the past, but he no longer feared me the way he had in Les Innocents, and such a mindset I refused to tolerate then. Justine was another matter, for she had a head on her shoulders and more understanding than I expected from a woman of the 18th century. She refused everything from me wholeheartedly and I ultimately had to accept that I would have to tell Nicolas she had died. There was no bringing her back to anything even close to the doctor she had once been."

"What you did?" David asked, barely able to keep in his outrage at the calmness with which Armand recounted his deeds.

"She resisted too well, and it broke her beyond my repair. There is an art in bending someone to your will without breaking. Nicolas, I could not help, not when he was doing it himself so effectively. But Justine I had yet to manage, and even when she broke her own neck to try to escape she still refused to be fed in order to advance the healing, preferring to come to waste," Armand said. "And only when she had broken and battered herself would she come to me and cower before me in service, as if she could possibly be of use to me then. She triumphed only in that she ruined herself so that she was not even of use to me."

"She was the Handed Girl. You brazenly used her in front of Nicki, knowing they were both too far gone to recognize each other," David said, standing up.

"You protest too much, David, and think too little of Nicolas. He may be a fool, but he is not stupid. He had his suspicions about her death. Had I allowed the two to meet when he was lucid, he may have harnessed his own energies and ignored enough of his limitations to set them both free. Her survival may have even galvanized his recovery and prevented his staged suicide, though how Eleni convinced him to do it by then is beyond my concern or consideration."

"He knew what would happen. He told Eleni to do it, before any of this started," David said.

"That shows remarkable planning on his part," Armand said with raised eyebrows. "I would not have expected it of him."

"Did Justine die?" David asked.

"I have no idea," Armand said. "I do not keep track of them, and you must recall I kept to myself before Louis' little interview took place."

"So she survived Nicolas' pyre at the Theatre?" David asked.

"She was the one who lit it," Armand replied with some measure of surprise and discomfort. "Hooded in the dark, she was unrecognizable to Nicolas even though he had at least half his wits about him then. No one else in the theatre knew who she was, only that she was under me, so there was no one to try to point it out to him."

"And what about Louis?" David asked.

"So you would drag him into this Inquisition as well?" Armand asked, and David was discomfited by his choice of words. Was it really as painful for Armand as he alluded? Vampires of Armand's age knew of the Inquisition, lived in memory of it. Such words were not tossed about lightly. "Louis' little arson habit is so thoughtfully forgotten and now the subject of teasing among us. I do not believe he would have checked, and in any case Justine left us before Louis even set foot upon his shores with the demon child."

"What do you mean she left you? I thought you said she was incurably mad," David protested, confused.

"She eventually worked it into her idiosyncratic perspective. I would not say she was incurably mad," Armand conceded, and smiled at David's alarm. "I had moved beyond whatever control issues I had by then, and when she petitioned to move to the Americas I gave her my blessing. She made no mention of her maker and I assumed she had left that aspect forgotten and buried beneath layers of scars, if one wishes to be melodramatic about it."

"Did she say where she would be?" David asked excitedly.

"As far as I was able to decipher, there were some mutterings about establishing a practice in South Carolina, but I doubt she would still be there," Armand said. "If she did survive the carnage the Queen wrought in any case. Don't tell me you intend to search for her. What good would it do to bring her to Nicolas? Even assuming she is alive, and sane, do you think that with all the publicity Lestat has acquired that she would not have already sought out Nicolas by now, or some word of him?"

"Lestat wrote that he died. If she didn't know what she was doing when Nicolas set up that pyre, then she could have believed whatever Lestat wrote in his book. Nicolas doesn't know she is alive. He ought to know."

"Does he even want to know? Perhaps he finds it a better balm upon his mind to think of her as dead and beyond all pain and memory. It seems like his sort of sedative," Armand said lightly. He turned at the click of the latch on the door. Daniel came in, toweling himself off. He smelled of the sea and the warmth of the breeze, and David did not fail to see the caress of Armand's hand against his side as he sat down. It seemed so unfair, that Armand should enjoy this as Nicolas screamed and wandered, trying to put his mind in order.

"I'm going to find her, and bring her here in case she can help," David said. "You don't know that he doesn't want to see her. And she may be all alone. Are you sure you have no idea what she did in America?"

"Tell me, did Dr. Bishop Bateman tell you who his maker was?" Armand asked with a smile, and David froze in his seat, dread pooling in his stomach. He locked eyes with Armand as Daniel got up to answer the phone. "It may do you good to pay a visit to Philadelphia."

"You didn't," David breathed. "All this time?"

"Hey, Lestat, how's it going?" Daniel grinned, and walked outside to the balcony to talk.

"What good would it have done?" Armand said. "It is all very mysterious. I myself do not know for certain. Fortunately, Bishop is not mad. We know that is not passed down through the Blood at least. At most he is unconventional, and you know as well as I that he is pleasant to talk to. He may have some idea."

"How could you keep it from him?" David asked, standing up, his voice rising. He caught Daniel's eye, but he was still on the telephone. "Give me a single good reason why I should not tell Daniel any of this."

"I am not the same boy I was when I was with Nicolas," Armand hissed, his composure broken for once as he stood to look up at David. "There have been enough lives ruined in the carnage of what Lestat has wrought. If you want to blame anyone it would be him, for bringing someone who should never have been given the Dark Gift! You tell Daniel and I will revoke my hospitality. You will no longer be welcome in this house, and I will make my displeasure known upon you first of all."

"What about this latest adventure, then? Nicolas lands in Louisiana, displaced and in unfamiliar surroundings, and the first thing you do is take him home and rape him and drug him?" David demanded. "To me you look no different from the coven master in the Theatre, trying to gain back control."

"I confess I lost my self-control then," Armand said, looking to Daniel for a moment. "I am not without my own demons. I tried to fix it afterwards, until you came along and ruined it all." He looked back up at David. "I am asking you, David, not to tell Daniel. I would not have him know. I would rather he never see me again than to have him know. He is not Nicolas, nor Lestat, nor Justine, nor anybody."

"He's your fledgling," David said, feeling foolish for saying it. "So how do you think Nicolas felt when you took Justine away?"

"I did not turn her against him. I did not make her no longer his," Armand said with a glare.

"Am I interrupting something?" Daniel asked when he came in and surveyed the two nearly nose-to-nose in anything but a friendly stance. "Look, uh, Lestat just called and Nicki's just going nuts. He wants you to get over there as soon as you can, David."

"I can't go, not right now. I have something to take care of," David said. "Don't worry, it relates to this." He hesitated, and then had an idea. "Why don't you go in my stead, Daniel? I am sure Nicolas will welcome a new face." Worst come to worst, Daniel could always hear the story from Nicolas, and David would never have to be responsible for breaking apart maker and fledgling. "Is that all right with you, Armand?"

"You don't have to ask him if I can go," Daniel said, giving David a queer look. He went to Armand, and David was overcome with a strange feeling as he watched Daniel hold his lover in his arms. "I should probably get over there. Lestat sounds hysterical. Do you want to come?"

"Given my history with Nicolas, it probably would not be a good idea," Armand admitted, and David pitied the adoring look in his eyes as he spoke with Daniel. Did his fledgling even notice how different his maker was with him? "It may not be good for you to go either. He may associate you with me."

"No, it's okay. One of the first things Nicki told me was that a fledgling is nothing like his maker, and the one is never responsible for the other," Daniel said with a smile, and kissed Armand softly on the cheek. "I'll only be gone a little while. I'll come back, I promise. It's not that far away. Are you going to stay here?" Armand nodded. "Okay then. Don't worry about me. Nicki's not the only one who's been a little unhinged in the past."

"I'll see you in New Orleans?" he asked David.

"It depends on how long my errands take. I am going to Philadelphia," David said.

"Good idea. Bishop'll think of something. You guys can probably cook up a new cocktail for Nicki, knock him out for a little while," Daniel said as he grabbed his things. He entirely missed the surprise on David's face. "Okay, I'm all set. I'll see you later!"

"How does Daniel know about Bateman?" David asked.

"He was having problems," Armand said, crossing his arms defensively. "It was only for a little while. He went to go see him on my suggestion. I didn't force him or anything, if that is what you are accusing me of."

David had nothing to say to that. He stepped back. "I'm leaving on the first plane to Philadelphia. It'll be karma for you if Nicolas tells Daniel anything. I leave that particular affair out of my hands."

"Nicolas knows how important Daniel is to me," was all Armand said.


End file.
